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AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH FASHION

Tommy Roberts

Interviewed by Anna Dyke

C1046/12

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NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION

INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET Title Page

Ref. No.: C1046/12/01-39 Wav file Refs.:

Collection title: Oral History of British Fashion

Interviewee’s surname: Roberts Title: Mr

Interviewee’s forenames: Thomas Stephen Sex: Male

Occupation: Boutique Owner Date of birth: 1942

Mother’s occupation: Housewife Father’s occupation: Businessman

Date(s) of recording and tracks (from-to): 01.08.2005 (track 1-8), 19.08.2005 (track 9-13), 30.08.2005 (14-21), 12.09.05 (track 22-32), 21.09.05 (track 32-39)

Location of interview: Interviewee’s home, Dover; except 19.08.05 at Interviewee’s shop, Hackney

Name of interviewer: Anna Dyke

Type of recorder: Marantz PMD660

Total no. of tracks: 39 Recording Format: Wav 16bit 48khz

Mono or stereo: Stereo

Burned to DVD(s) Duration: 16 hours 25 minutes

Additional material:

Interviewer’s comments: Background noise from interviewee’s shop/customers 19.08.05

Tommy Roberts Page 1 C1046/12/01

[Track 1]

Okay, are you ready?

Okay.

Okay, so it’s the first of August 2005. And, can you tell me your full name?

My name is Thomas Stephen Roberts. I was born in 1942, because my mother was evacuated to Bath in Somerset and there’s a birth certificate, I think it’s for Bath in Somerset, but she didn’t like evacuation so we went back to London and I lived with my grandparents who’d been bombed out, in Forest Hill. And they’d been re-housed in Allerford Road, Bellingham and that’s where I lived for about the first four years of my life. And, what can I remember from that? Course, it is a London suburb, but even in those days it, you know, it wasn’t sort of the end of the, the beginning of the twentieth century, but even in those days like the Ravensbourne River run at, along at the end of the road and it wasn’t so built up. But of course, they built all those estates just before the war, McAlpine’s had built Downham Estate and Bellingham Estate. All the people from Rotherhithe and everything to go and live there. So anyone round there, really, you’ll find that they all come from Bermondsey or Rotherhithe, but where we come from, I’m not quite – Lambeth, Lambeth, my grandmother. And, few memories, I can remember going down into the Anderson shelter at the back of the garden, I can remember thousand bomber raid going above, I can remember all the Italian prisoners-of-war singing songs of, sort of ‘Finiculi, Finicula’ and walking up the road with their shovels on their backs. I can remember things like that from the war. And then my – now, my mother didn’t go to work, she looked after me. My grandparents, as I say, lived downstairs. And then my father, I can remember my father coming back from leave in about forty-five, but he had to go back again to Palestine. He didn’t leave in forty… ‘cos of the troubles there, you know, in Palestine. You know, British mandate and whatever, and Israel’s… so there was problems there, so he didn’t actually come out till I think the middle of 1946. And, well just stop for a second, I’m just trying to think. My flow’s stopped.

Could I, I’d like to go back over lots of that stuff.

Tommy Roberts Page 2 C1046/12/01

Yes.

Could I ask a few details on the way?

Yes, oh please do Anna, yeah I’m very delighted. Yeah that’s what it’s… yeah, carry on.

So your name’s obviously Thomas, but when did you…

Thomas Roberts is a funny tradition, there’s lots of, if you go out and you start to look at the phone… there’s lots of Thomas Roberts, it’s a traditional name. Welsh, of course, Roberts. And I think my father was, I was a Thomas Stephen Roberts, my father was Thomas George Roberts, his father before him was a Thomas Roberts and his father before him was Thomas Roberts! And so it went on, and that’s how it became Thomas Roberts. I think the George came ‘cos my grandfather’s first name was George, and that’s how I got, you know that’s how it was. Yeah.

So when did you start to go by the name of Tommy?

…Fact I didn’t really, you see I think at the beginning it was Tom, and then I suppose sort of when I was about eight years old and you know, Tommy came up then. But I think originally it was Tom. Yeah.

So would your parents have shortened it for you?

No, they didn’t call me Thomas. Tom – ah yeah, I think my father would be Tommy. Tom – no, father called me Tom and my mother called me Tommy. ‘Tommy, what are you doing?’ So, that kind of thing. That’s how I think that came about.

And at school, did you call yourself Tommy?

Well I wouldn’t, it was only what other children called me really wasn’t it? They called me lots of things, not only Tommy.

Tommy Roberts Page 3 C1046/12/01

And when you left school and you became a professional, what made you decide to call yourself Tommy rather than Thomas?

I think it just, that people, you know that more people called me Tommy than there was Tom. But still people called me Tom. But I suppose, when I wrote, wrote my name, I always wrote it T-O-double M-I-E. Perhaps for some, I suppose it’s being a bit, a bit facetious, I don’t know really, but I wrote it T-double O-M-I-E.

It’s a sort of feminine ending?

Yeah, I suppose it might be, that’s right, yeah. But just a sort of quirk really. Sometimes I’d write it T-double O-M-Y. You know, I suppose it’s a bit liquid, the name. [laughs] Not that I’ve gone – I haven’t got through life with a load of aliases and you know, different names and different families [laughs] and things like that, it’s not that, it’s just that I always, yeah I suppose I always fancied being a bit more fanciful. That’s what it was I think, yes.

But what does it say on your passport?

Thomas. Mm, mm. Yeah.

And, what was your mother’s name?

Maree, Marie. And I think that comes from my grandfather being a cavalryman in the First World War, he’d been a regular before the First World War, he’d been a cavalryman. You know, the cavalry, horses. He always understood horses and things. And I think he could have been in France in the First World War. When his daughter come along in 1922, I think Marie Blanche Gibson, ‘cos his name was Gibson. And he was the Gibsons. They were a kind of – no-one never seemed to do a proper day’s work. They were gamblers, horse racing, on the stage a bit, things like that, yeah, the Gibsons.

What d’you mean by ‘on the stage’?

Tommy Roberts Page 4 C1046/12/01

Well, one of the daughter’s married someone on the stage and they came from Brixton and if you look, a lot of stage people lived in Brixton – there’s Brixton Hill… Brixton was a kind of theatrical place. I think Islington as well as bit, but Brixton was a theatrical… you know, where a lot of people would be in the music hall and places like that. Mm. And there’d be a fringe of people outside there getting their living off of those people, things, you know there might be kind of people with a carriage, you know like taking them to work, helping them with the things, selling ‘em things – it was a more liberal kind of, people could kind of scratch a living being round music hall artistes and people like that. Yeah, all different things.

D’you know why there was this concentration in Brixton?

I don’t know why, I think there’s a couple of big stars moved, lived there and there was other areas of London, you know, I don’t think Dan Leno and people like that, they lived elsewhere, I think in north London, but Marie Lloyd I think – d’you know I can’t remember now, I think she lived in Camden Town, I think she lived sort of round there really, I can’t remember. But there were definitely like Brixton, well Brixton Hill of course it was rather grand, it was a very wide road and if you look, the few houses that remain, they lay very far back off of Brixton, it was a big wide road and it was [inaudible] road and it was where like bankers for the City, you know I think when it was first built, 1840s, 1850s you know, they would go home there, the carriage would go home and of course, early on you had an omnibus service, horse drawn bus service as well. But Brixton was a grand kind of an upmarket place. And then beyond Brixton Hill, of course it was all open, like Norbury and places were in the countryside.

So were your…

Norwood, not Nor… - Norwood, I’m sorry.

So were your grandparents in one of those houses in Brixton, or…?

Tommy Roberts Page 5 C1046/12/01

I don’t know where they were, but no, they wouldn’t be in one of those, they’d be round the back. I think my grandfather really, as far as I can remember, when he come out of the army he’d be painter and decorating. When he had some money he’d go to the races, when he didn’t have any money he’d be painting and decorating. And his brother lived in the Railway Tavern Catford, really, the pub there, because the greyhound, after the war – this is after the Second World War – there was Catford dog, the greyhound stadium there and he’d take the, you know there was no bookmaker shops, he was a bookmaker’s runner and he was bookmaker’s running and he’d park himself in the pub, in the saloon bar of the Railway Tavern taking the bets. Mm.

In a, unofficial basis?

On an unofficial basis. And my poor father, when he first come out of the army, everybody got as a gratuity, a certain sum of money and I think he, you know, he got involved with my grandfather and my uncle, my great uncle of course – oh, I can’t think. And of course he got involved in going to the Catford dog track and it soon went. [laughs]

So, if he was on the stage at some point, what was he doing?

Well I don’t, great uncle Charlie was ‘cos he used to do eccentric dancing, that dancing, Max Wall did it and things, you know, and tap dancing and things. But that was before I was born, you know, before I was born.

Did he have a stage name?

Not that I know of. Oh, I had a great aunt Nell but that was – yeah, part of that… great aunt Nell and she’d been, I think she’d been called ‘The Young Soubrette’ or something, in about 1910 and they came from Lambeth and she appeared on the stage with Charlie Chaplin.

Was there a particular music hall…

Tommy Roberts Page 6 C1046/12/01

Well Charlie was, Charlie was, I mean it was even before the Lancashire Lads and things, you know. Or I think he appeared with the father as a little, whatever… mm.

Was there a particular music hall that they were associated with or did they travel?

Well, they weren’t so much- it was a sort of, they were, if he was… around music hall people the money flowed easier of course, take a bet, take it down there and… somehow these people get a sort of living. I suppose it’s like today, it’s like drug dealers and people hanging round pop stars and whatever and you know, if a pop star wants a country house it’s fifteen estate agents with sports… to rush out and find him a house, isn’t there? And it’s that kind of thing and you know, the money was a bit flowing and of course there’d be lots of people. But then there’d be terrible hard times when there wasn’t anything. And then uncle Charlie, great uncle Charlie, when it was really hard he used to make, sell polish door to door, tins of this awful furniture polish which his wife used to make in a great big cauldron in the kitchen, stirring this stuff up and pouring it into tins. And she went out selling, when there was no money at all, you know it had all been lost down the racetrack or whatever, she had to go round door to door selling this polish. There was always some of these funny kind of things like that, you know.

But when times were good, were they really good?

Yeah, I don’t think there was ever any big money involved, you know, but if they were good I suppose they might have won twenty pound at the races, which was a lot of money and all come back and you all went off to Brighton for the weekend and this, that and the other and that was it. It didn’t last, there was no, you know, no-one owned their own homes or anything like that.

So they would have gone to Brighton for…

Yeah, Brighton was the kind of thing in people’s minds. You know, they’d go and have a – course there was a racetrack there as well and if they could you know, combine it with the races. And my grandfather, I remember he’d have a racing outfit, it was wonderful. He was a tall, kind of a good looking man. He’d have a nice, lovely bowler hat, nice

Tommy Roberts Page 7 C1046/12/01 belted, proper raincoat, then he’d put his binoculars round, polished shoes, suit, gloves, ready for the day and he was going for a day’s racing, it was a big, you know, that was his special racing outfit.

So, was he sort of posing as a gentleman, or was he in a sense a…?

He was very kind and very… very straight. Not, he wasn’t – the brothers were a bit more… but he was very straight, very honest, very sort of… no, there was just a coda really, at the time wasn’t there, if you went you know, to the races and you went into the five shilling ring or wherever it was, you, to look your nice neat collar and tie and looking respectable.

So was your grandfather on the stage at all or…?

No, no, no. There were always a load of books. When I was a child I used to rummage through and see all these books and I picked up a book, something the Strong Man, Russian the Strong Man and I said, ‘Why have you got that, Granddad, why have you got that book?’ He said, ‘Oh’ he said, ‘Well, one of my brother’s wives married him. She was on the stage when she was a young beautiful girl’ and this kind of, in these days, this like sort of bald man. He was [inaudible] you know if, he’d hold back two horses galloping and that kind of thing, yeah. But she was sort of sold by the father really, he sold her to him really, you know, for money you know. They do things like that. They do things like that, yeah, you know, you forget, people…

Did they?

Well kind of in a funny way, the father would… money, you ought to marry him dear, you won’t do better than that and you know, well I don’t, you fucking well marry him, you know. They were a bit like that, a bit like that, mm.

So, you knew…

Tommy Roberts Page 8 C1046/12/01

So, she anyway, she had to be sold to the… not sold, but that’s the story I heard. Whether it was true, she might have been in love with the man. I mean I was told on that thing. And, kind of, it was a bit brutal and then she died of something, you know, something like that.

D’you know how?

I don’t really know how. It was all a bit hushed up. [laughs] I did think afterwards, perhaps it was, he didn’t cut the mustard, not her. But that was only… something that occurred to me much later on. And no, the only other literature in there was form books of course, horse racing form books. Grandmother was a reader and my mother was a reader.

What’s your grandmother’s name?

Alice. And I don’t know, I can’t remember her surname. Her mother had been French. Little French woman. Her grandmother had been French. Come over from France, I think in the, when their terrible thing, the Franco-Prussian war when they were in Paris starving, I think she got out and she come to England as a chambermaid or whatever and married someone here and made a life here.

So, you knew your grandparents?

Yes.

Are these your mother’s parents that we’re… yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I’m talking about my mother’s parents. And my father’s parents – his father died before the war so I never knew him, and his mother, yes I knew her. But never really close. My father was a bit funny about going and visiting her and things, you know, I don’t know why.

You don’t know why?

Tommy Roberts Page 9 C1046/12/01

I think he was brought up by his sisters more than his mother. His mother didn’t want to do any cooking or anything like that. She was very nice, but she was not interested in that. But the sisters brought him up, my father.

So, was there a big age gap between him and his sisters then?

Yeah, the sisters were older, the sisters were probably like fourteen, the oldest one would be fourteen years older or twelve years older than the other, you know, two sisters, yeah.

And what was your father’s name?

Thomas, of course. Yeah. Thomas George Roberts.

Back to your mother’s parents – when you were talking about going through the form books and so on, are you talking about the house that you lived in?

No, I’m talking about Allerford Road where we lived upstairs and they lived downstairs. When they were bombed out, you know, the Council put them into Allerford Road. They stayed for many years. But that’s where I spent the first four years of my life.

Could you describe that house for us?

Semi-detached, I suppose now it would be quite a desirable residence. Quiet road, nice road, Allerford Road, which is outside Catford going towards Downham, Bellingham. Down the road was the Green Man and opposite was Peter Pan’s Pool, which was a child’s sort of, a child’s day out. It was like a little funfair and swings and there was a pond there and they had little rowing boats and things like that.

What was this called?

Peter Pan’s Pool, we used to call it. I mean anyone round that district would know and it was, you know, it was a slight touch of the countryside about it. I mean you wouldn’t dream of it now, the trams went along there of course. And I went to, the first school I

Tommy Roberts Page 10 C1046/12/01 ever remember – I don’t really remember it – I remember going through great big piles of snow to get to this [inaudible] school, ‘cos afterwards I realised it was the winter of forty- seven, which was a very, very, very, bad winter, and being cold and things like that. Rationing of course, you know.

But back to your grandparents’ house – can you describe the inside of it? Can you sort of picture it and go in, as it were?

I can sort of picture it. You know, I think it was a time of utility drop leaf tables, sideboard and four chairs. Very, nothing special at all. There was a few prints on the wall of, I suppose you’d, would be sort of art deco prints today, wouldn’t they of like, you know, a lady with fans. Little bit of crockery in the cabinet like cottage ware crockery. They never really had – but they never had, no money, they didn’t really have no money. Usual bed, there was nothing sort of – they used to keep chickens at the end of the garden, ‘cos of the war, for the eggs. There was a garden, the railway used to run at the end of the garden, which was even electrified then, the railway, I remember. I’m trying to think – that kind of utility furniture really. I bet they were bombed out, lost everything and they got a ticket to go and get like a wardrobe, table, chairs, double bed and single bed and that kind of thing. And then that’s what they had, that was it.

So they were in the downstairs…

There was no like sort of valuable antiques in there or anything.

But they were in the downstairs part of the house?

Well they had the whole house, but they let my mother and myself live upstairs while my father was in the army. But when he come out the army soon afterwards, they wanted us gone, you know. You know, if I cry, there would be the broom, so it didn’t last very long. When he come out the army, we moved.

But can you remember living with them? When it was just you and your mother?

Tommy Roberts Page 11 C1046/12/01

Yeah, yeah, I can remember going with my grandfather, giving me a piggyback past Peter Pan’s Pool and things like that. I can remember going to the cinema, I think it was called The Splendid and that was just – it’s knocked down now – but like a sort of – I can remember going to the cinema. I think my mother used to go to the cinema once a week.

And take you?

And take me if it was suitable. Yeah.

But sometimes she would have gone and left you?

Maybe, maybe, I can’t think that. Maybe, maybe. I think, I’m just trying to think, I think I might have gone with my grandmother once, but then, my grandmother never went to the cinema, wouldn’t, you know. I don’t they’d ever been to the cinema.

What did your grandmother look like?

She was quite petite. Always nicely dressed.

What’s nicely dressed?

Didn’t have much money, but there was like a little lavender coloured two-piece suit and a sprig of flower and you know, always, quite, always smart. They were always smart, mm, mm. Yeah. I mean they were always smart. Obviously important what they looked like. Not like me.

And what did your grandfather look like?

Quite tall. Quite handsome man. I suppose tall in those days, but not today. Perhaps like five foot ten or something. My grandmother was about five foot three. And not many clothes, but nice clothes, always highly polished shoes and things like that. A man of that time, really.

Tommy Roberts Page 12 C1046/12/01

How many different outfits d’you think they might have had?

Puh, I never delved into that really, I couldn’t really say. You know, I don’t know because I can’t, you know, if you say did he wear a hacking jacket and cavalry twills or not, I would have no idea, I’m just trying to think. I know he shaved with an old-fashioned, you know, strap razor thing. I mean I know he smoked rolled up cigarettes, St Julian I think it was called, French kind of brand. You know, St Julian. He had a bad chest ‘cos he got gassed in the war, so he had a bad chest which affected him later so he couldn’t really get about very much. I can remember going to Brighton, I can remember him going swimming in a one piece, the old-fashioned swimming thing, I can remember that. I can remember… ‘cos we used to have days out and they used to come out with us when you have days out and things like that. But he was kind of a very straight man, you know, he would never, no old kind – he wouldn’t be, there was no cunning side to him really. Grandmother slightly, there was. Little bit more cunning, yeah.

What d’you mean?

In a funny way, I don’t know. I could imagine her going to the butcher’s in the war with the coupons and being very sweet and everything and getting a little bit of extra meat and things. I can imagine that, but my grandfather’d be useless ‘cos he wouldn’t be able to do that, you know. He not, you know, I mean he wasn’t, he was friendly and charming, but he couldn’t be, false charm and whatever.

Even though he had been the unofficial bookie, hadn’t he?

He had. He wasn’t really, his brother really more than him. Yeah, his brother really. Not really him, no not really. Not really. If he had any money he’d go to the races, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t. But he would do painting and decorating as well. I think he worked for the Council. I can’t remember whatever he did, I’ve never – I’ve got a feeling he worked for the Council.

Did he decorate…

Tommy Roberts Page 13 C1046/12/01

I know he had all his tools there in a box and his bib and braces overalls and things. But that, but that was while I was very young then and I think that ended, he must have – how old was he? Another thing. I would have thought he was, I would have thought he would have been born – wasn’t that old. I would have thought he would have been born in 1889, 1890, yeah. But you see after a while I was about, after about 1955 I don’t think he ever, you know, that was the end of it, he didn’t work any more than that, 1950 or whatever, yeah.

Did he decorate that house, if he worked for the Council?

No, no. Painter and decorators never decorate their own homes, you must know that. [laughs] You know. I mean painters and decorators’ homes are always in a shocking state aren’t they? [laughing] Painters and decorators never decorate their own homes, no, no. The Council might come round and do that, whatever. No it wasn’t, I never saw him up a ladder stripping wallpaper or anything like that, no, no.

But it was tidy?

It was tidy. My grandmother had it tidy. You know, that thing of where you – ‘cos as a child I used to like opening the drawers ‘cos there was always rolls of string and brown paper bags were kept and things like that, you know, it was always that kind of thing. I always remember being interested in opening the drawers and looking. And I can remember sitting under the drop leaf table, you know, the old traditional kind of utility drop leaf table, but I always remember, you know ‘cos it had to have two stretchers underneath, cross stretchers and I can remember sitting, I used to sit under the table doing things.

What were you doing?

D’you know, it’s hard for me to think what I was doing. I used to do drawing and… yeah, I can remember playing a bit, you know. I’d have my little bike. I was in, I’d be something. Kicking a football – I used to like kicking a football around in the garden. I couldn’t really play in the garden ‘cos grandfather, it’d get on his nerves. Bit. He was not,

Tommy Roberts Page 14 C1046/12/01

I don’t see him as a – you know, I see him as a very nice man, he was always very kind and nice to me.

How did he talk to you?

I can’t remember. I’m not gonna be – I can’t remember really. ‘What are you…’, you know, ‘How are you? What have you been doing?’ and, ‘Oh yeah’ you know. ‘Because you’re short and a bit stout’ he said, ‘you’re a bit thick, you’d be a good sprinter’ and all this kind of thing, you know, ‘you should be able to sprint up the road’ and all that. And… yeah, I don’t think he was that kind of – I mean I helped, but I think I used to help him feed the chickens. Feed these chickens, produce these eggs. ‘Cos a lot of people kept chickens then because you was on ration, you see. There wasn’t no TV or anything. Everybody just put the radio on and listened to the radio. I think we’d have a Sunday lunch there as well, grandmother would cook a Sunday lunch, and we’d all sit together while we were having a Sunday lunch. But I was very young, that was all over by the time I was five, you see, I’d already gone. You know, I mean these are very early days. Forty- six when I was, well I was four wasn’t I, we were the kind of…

[End of Track 1] [Track 2]

…five, just five, because I remember going to that school for a little while, maybe just before I was four and three-quarters or something. And then we were off, you know, that was it. Gone, get our own, you know.

So what was Sunday lunch like, can you remember that?

No. I’m being a bit fanciful, I can’t really remember, I can’t remember anything to do with eating there really, actually. I was a bit too young. I can remember going to a child’s birthday party up the road, there was children lived next door. One of those kind of 1930s, late 1920s semi-detached houses. You know, little bit kind of, you know that kind of jack- a-box style. [laughs] The wood at the front and – now of course they would have made the side entrances into car parks and things. Mm. Thousands of ribbon built houses in you

Tommy Roberts Page 15 C1046/12 Track 2 know, they built thousands of these houses in the outer rings of London. ‘Cos London’s like an onion isn’t it? You know, the further you go out, the younger the property. Downham’s 1930s, Bellingham’s 1920s, Catford’s 1900s. New Cross is kind of 1880s, parts of the Old Kent Road, 1860s, 1840s. You know, it’s an onion, architectural ring of, you know. That’s you know, it was quite good, when you go the Metropolitan line or something, you see that. The further you go out then it’s you know, 1950s and then new estates built in the sixties, it’s a sort of ring. Don’t know what made me say that, I just did.

Did they have a car?

No, they never had…

Never?

They never owned a car, no. No-one owned a car.

No-one?

My father owned a car, but quite rare that. But no, I think you’d probably find one car in the whole street. I’m trying to visualise looking down that road as a little child. Probably no cars, one car I think, one car. Someone I think about eight doors down, probably a salesman for a big company you know, commercial traveller, something, would have a car wouldn’t they? They would get the coupons for the petrol you see, ‘cos they were a commercial traveller for the firm, they needed a car to go out selling the goods.

So, did you know your neighbours?

Or a doctor would have a car. They would have the coupons for petrol. Doctor. Certain things, or police. Commercial, you know, commercial travellers, yeah.

Did you know who your neighbours were though?

Tommy Roberts Page 16 C1046/12 Track 2

No, it was just, I think there was a family next door with sort of two or three children. What they did I don’t know, I was too young to even think about it.

But you played with the children?

I played with the children, yeah, I played with the children. I couldn’t tell you their names or anything. I did play with the children.

Football and…?

Yeah, probably two years, whatever, a couple of years. They were all, I think they were all under school age most of them.

Yeah.

Then they all started to go to school. I’m trying to think what else.

But would you have played foot…

They’d do the garden, the garden would be quite neat, the front garden and things, you know it wouldn’t be overgrown. Quite neat, respectable, whatever. They’d polish the front steps wouldn’t they, and sweep the drive. There was a garden gate and I can remember swinging on the garden gate and my mother with all these Italian – ‘cos my mother was quite attractive and they’d be ooh, and all this. There’d be like hundreds of the… big line of these Italian prisoners-of-war, as I say, singing those sort of Neopolitan songs. I can remember that. Mm.

How did you feel when they’d say that to your mother?

Well as a child, I suppose you quite like it. But of course, later on you realise, you know, why. She was a young woman of twenty-one or something. Mm.

And, would you play with your friends in the street?

Tommy Roberts Page 17 C1046/12 Track 2

Yes, well there’s no cars, there’s no fear, there was nothing to stop you playing in the street. And if I walked down, there was a kind of, behind, there was some garages opposite and like a little kind of, like a little country lane in a funny way – wouldn’t believe this, but it’s true – and down the bottom was the river Ravensbourne. Or was it the Quaggy, the offspring of the Ravensbourne? ‘Cos the Ravensbourne comes from Keston and flows into the Thames, you know. But I think it was the Quaggy, which is a sort of tributary of the Ravensbourne. South London, you know, you’d see the Quaggy, but now of course it’d be under the con… you never see it, but you could play, you know, you’d play there. There’d be trees there and you could play there. But that all got built up early on, I think that was all built up by 1949 or something, you know.

What would you play there?

Oh you’d have a game with sticks and things, you know, you’d have a game along the river, like the Quaggy, the water, splash in the water. I mean cowboys and you know, cowboys and Indians. Yeah, so we’d definitely play down there. I probably had a toy – I used to like things like that, toy guns and you know, cowboy outfits and things like that, yeah, liked all that.

Did you have outfits?

I think I had a nice cowboy hat and a toy gun you know, holster and whatever. And they would play, maybe you’d play, I think you might even play kind of more sophisticated really, you played sort of knights and you know, you’d have like a sort of, made out of wood, a sword and you’d have a game with that and this business, until one child’s fingers had got hurt and rushed off crying, that’d be the end of that. Usually me, you know.

Really?

Off [inaudible].

Tommy Roberts Page 18 C1046/12 Track 2

So this cowboy hat or the gun or whatever, would they have been bought from a shop or would they be homemade?

No, they’d be bought from the shop. You know, I mean you might have gone to Bromley which was a big, quite a big shopping centre then. That was – oh that’s something you’d do – you used to have the sales. My mother and grandmother used to go to the sales and you’d get the bus, ‘cos Bellingham, you’d go to Bromley for the sales in the department stores. Sometimes it was Peckham, you know, ‘cos there were two of these department stores, sometimes Peckham. Croydon was a – you didn’t ever go there. Oh and yes, up into London, I always remember that, to South Kens of course, yeah. Get the green line. No, did we get the green line? I can’t remember now, but that was an outing for the January sales, up you go. And I had to be tagged, I used to go along as well and they’d all be trying the hats on and this. I can remember the price of the hats in the sale.

Go on then.

Five shillings. Bits of hats. And there’d be a mirror and a dressing table and all piles of these hats – Barkers, Derry and Toms, one of those stores. And they were all, I think they were at five shillings, there was a five shilling thing and a seven and sixpenny one and there would be all these women trying on these hats and outfits and things. I can remember that, that was a day out because you got a kind of, you had a, you stopped at Cordoba coffee house or something and had a coffee with that. And then grandmother, mother and me being taken along, and then come home. But that was a day out, yeah I can remember that. That was a long time – that was early, forty-eight, forty-nine.

Would you have dressed up for a day like that?

Well yeah, you’d have had to have a bit of you know, I think you’d have had short grey trousers, socks, shoes, clean shoes and a raincoat and a little cap I think. You’d have a raincoat, I remember. And you’d have to look – and you’d be bored ‘cos they’d be trying on these hats and these you know, and these thing and waiting to get into the dressing room to try something and you’d be puffing and blowing as a kid standing there and

Tommy Roberts Page 19 C1046/12 Track 2 standing – and it was a torture. It was torture, actually. You was desperate to come home. [laughs]

Were you not at all interested in the different things they were trying on?

No. The hats, I always remember. I do remember certain things. I do remember certain things. You know, you liked it for a while, but after a while it become a bit torturous really, just standing there waiting. And you might get something though, that was the only other thing. You might get a little outfit or whatever. And then my – I used to get a few things, my father, from Gammidge’s. Yeah, ‘cos Gammidge’s was…

What’s that?

Gammidge’s department store. Oh yeah, near the Law Courts, Holborn. Gammidge’s of High Holborn, big, great big department store. That was great for toys and things. Great for everything, but that was a smashing store that was, I liked that.

Can you remember what it was like to go in there as a small boy?

Yes. Well of course it was quite grand wasn’t it? There’d be doormen in a hat and peaked cap and – but of course it’d be a scrum because it’s the January sales, they’d all be racing in there, racing round bits and things, it was a big thing. But it would go on for about a week I think, five days. And then you’d go up for the sales. It was, even if they didn’t have much money I think it was a day out. It was really a day out, really I think. I think you’d come back with something nice.

So what was the outfit that they might have got you?

Erm, well I suppose you’d try a winter coat wouldn’t they? A winter coat you might try to get yourself.

For you?

Tommy Roberts Page 20 C1046/12 Track 2

Oh for me? Yeah, that was a bit, these outfits – ‘cos you never, with a child, it’s never what you want is it? It’s never what you want. Course in those days – later on my parents were quite liberal like that, I could kind of wear what I wanted, most kids couldn’t. I could sort of – it was different for me really. But you know, they had to sort of wear these things, there was still school clothes and there was this clothes and you know, you wore these things and again it was all the huffing ‘cos you had to be trying these trousers on or these things and being measured. And then, try this jacket on and do, all shortened, ‘cos then your parents would have to shorten, mother’d have to shorten the sleeves and things like that. I’m trying to think. I can’t – you know, what we’re talking about is very, very, long, long time ago, you know. I can’t think of anything, I didn’t really, I think I needed a little sort of zip-up jacket, which was a bit unusual. Sort of velveteen I think it kind of was, something like that. But really, you know, you wanted to look like a cowboy didn’t you, or Robin Hood or something, that’s what you wanted to look like.

So it was a bit disappointing was it?

Yeah, well you just wanted a kind of – usually you’re in short trousers, a fair isle little jumper aren’t you and a shirt and then you’ve got your gun belt on and your war bonnet or whatever it was, dressing up isn’t it? A shield and a sword, knight and armour.

What did you look like as a small boy?

Quite stout. I don’t know really. Quite sort of stout, bit stout, kind of one of them boys. You know, when you see a picture of seven boys, there’s always one a bit stouter than the others, but that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Not particularly tall, no. No. But kind of quite kind of, often in the lead of anything really. You know, if there was a gang I’d try to say, come on, let’s all go and do this or whatever, you know.

Were you confident then?

…Not overly, I don’t think. You know, ‘cos as a child it’s always you know, even as a little child you say, well you’d better not go down there ‘cos the so-and-so live down there, or whatever. ‘Cos you’re always territorial of course. You wouldn’t want to be, you’d be

Tommy Roberts Page 21 C1046/12 Track 2 a little bit careful. But when you’re very young, it doesn’t come into that really, that’s a little bit later on, really. All that comes about.

And when you went to these department stores, would they, would your parents or your grandparents have bought you toys?

No, no not really, often not, no you didn’t always get – you know, birthday, I mean it was always a bit, my mother was a bit sort of [laughing] funny like that. You know, little bit of pocket money and you didn’t come back clutching a lovely sort of toy rifle which – my cousin always did, but I didn’t, no. But I still got things, I mean I wouldn’t deny it at all. In the long run you got it.

Your cousin did?

Well my cousin went to boarding school, so when he come he always seemed to have more things than I ever had?

How did that feel?

Well I was a bit sort of jealous, because he was always, he’s always had lovely cowboy outfit, he seemed to have a load of Dinky toys, you know all things that I, you know, you’d have one or two, he’d got to have twenty. [laughs] So it was a kind of… I can remember that. Would go and play with him. But didn’t play with him much, I didn’t go there that much, it was only occasional visit. But he’d always have lots of Dinkys and used to have toy soldiers, which I really like, ‘cos I used to like toy soldiers. And he always seemed to, he’d always have lots of it, you know. [laughs]

Did you have some toy soldiers?

I think it was because he went to boarding school and I think it was because, you know, and even – and thinking about it – even in his holidays he went to stay with a cousin, so you know.

Tommy Roberts Page 22 C1046/12 Track 2

What do you mean by…?

Well… but it just seemed like, I mean, bit awkward for him, I think the father, the uncle was a bit of a boozer and a bit of a, you know, and I think a little bit difficult sometimes. So even when he was away at school he’d sometimes have to go – well he didn’t, he liked to, because we all played, he liked, he wanted to come to my other cousin who lived in Datchet, a place near Slough. And that’s, first of all, well I think my father really after he come out the army and that and I think he actually went, and my uncle had moved to Slough and worked in the Mars Bar factory [laughing] on the Slough Trading Estate, and he said, ‘Oh I’ll get you a job Tom’, to my… and there, and I think my father went and he had to carry great big planks of wood, he lasted about two days and it was ghastly, so that didn’t last, you know. So, I remember that. He come back after about three days, he couldn’t do that.

What is the name of your cousin who had all the toy soldiers?

John. John Lynn. Yeah, we’re still friends, he lives in Australia, you know.

So, did his parents have the money then, to send him to boarding school?

Well they always had a little bit of money. His, my, my father’s eldest sister had a business, timber importers, the grandfather of the, the father of the father, John Lynn’s grandfather had a timber… and the father worked there, you know, was there. That was in Peckham, quite well-known, Lynn’s Timber, they were quite a well-known firm, so there was always a little bit more money. They always had a sort of nice car and things, which was fine, no sense of like jealousy, only over these, perhaps these toys a little bit. And, mind you, the daughter never got any… only the son got the education, not the daughter. The old like daughter didn’t, no. No, she’d go to work, you know. Funny, those days, the son but not the daughter. No, not the daughter. Funny that. You know, like my cousin Pam, no, had no private education or anything, no. Funny isn’t it? Just talking now, it just clicked in my brain. Why that would be… yeah. Perhaps the son was given the opportunity, you know.

Tommy Roberts Page 23 C1046/12 Track 2

Did you get on with John though?

Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, we all yeah, got on well with him. Could be a little bit difficult, but we got on well.

Did you notice, do you think he was affected at all by going to boarding school?

Well of course, it does, slightly different. Slightly different you know, you’re mixing with, you know, it does put you apart slightly. Yeah, I would say that. But I mean, I’m talking as a child, but maybe later on we’d give… he never was affected, never really, but slightly, slightly different to whatever, ‘cos I had a sort of range of friends from all different levels.

Did you ever think how you might have dealt with going to boarding school?

Yeah, I did, I always felt that you know, my father could have done that for me, you know and I did a little bit thought well… I suppose at the time he wouldn’t have done, but I think they probably thought it was a waste of money for me, I don’t know, perhaps they didn’t think, you know, whatever. But he could have done that for me, if… in many ways I’ve, sometimes slips into my head that perhaps they could have done that.

But do you think that you could have, as a child, d’you think you could have coped with not being with your parents?

That, maybe not, maybe not, maybe not. They were quite, he was quite wise, my old… you know, he was a strange man but quite wise.

Your father?

Mm. Quite funny, clever really. He’d bring himself to any level; the lowest common denominator to join in people, but you know, he’d always sort of undersell hisself in a funny way, my father. He was intelligent, bright, clever and it would all be subdued ‘cos he’d have to be sort of ignorant or something – not ignorant, but he’d have to go down to the lowest common denominator all the time. Very strange thing really.

Tommy Roberts Page 24 C1046/12 Track 2

Sounds like…

He needed, I bet he needed to be wanted or something, you know.

D’you think he felt a bit of an outsider or something?

I don’t think so, I don’t know what it was really, I think he just wanted to be sort of – I suppose the mother was a bit funny, you know, he never had a funny, slightly, relation with his mother. Mother, I don’t think she was that, he didn’t have much affection from the mother I don’t think. Not that she was a horrid woman or anything, but she just wasn’t built that way to be…

From his mother?

My father’s mother, wasn’t built that way to be all kissing and cuddling, you know. There was not much – as I say, the sisters brought him up. I think there was a slight kind of thing with that. And then, you know, later on he’d always be sort of going down the pub and the blokes… and whatever level they’re on, he’d be on that level. Funny really.

Did you get much of a picture of his childhood?

A bit of a picture of his childhood. I’ve got a bit of a picture of his childhood. New Cross born. They were, I suppose you’d say lower middle - I don’t know what you… upper working class. Hard to describe, and the father was a chef on the railways, ‘cos the mother couldn’t cook so she [laughing]… but the father was a chef on the railways. I don’t ever know about the mother ever working. He had a psychic grandmother who’d, when there was a death in the family, there was a death in the street, he was told to go round and get the grandmother about it, to do the lying out, whatever. Tommy run round the corner, she was already in her weeds, in her black coming up the road. She said, ‘Ooh I know’. She had not [laughing]… she… frightened him really. If you go round to grandmother’s, she always knew, you know, without being told, she was already on her way, you know. [laughs]

Tommy Roberts Page 25 C1046/12 Track 2

Did she do séances or something?

No, not as far as that, no, not as I know, but I don’t really know what laying out is, an old- fashioned thing. When somebody died, they would like put their, I suppose lay ‘em up, put their suit on ‘em and all that wouldn’t they? I don’t know what laying out is.

Oh.

It’s a thing isn’t it? You know, and then they all come and see the body and all that kind of thing. And then they go off to the, you know, general, but laying out, usually one of the ladies in the family would do that job. Not job, but sort of, I don’t know.

Is that where they make them up, ready to be…

Yeah, make them look respectable I suppose, whatever. Look ready for the thing.

So that was your father’s…

Yeah well of course in those days, it was you know, there was always people dying wasn’t there. I mean if they had seven children, only four of ‘em would, four or five of ‘em, lucky for five of ‘em to survive. ‘Cos in the First World War they’d all get killed in the war anyway. And course they’d have to have the body brought home and the body laid out in the parlour with a nice, and a bowl of carbolic underneath to keep the smell down. A dish of carbolic, which my father drunk one day as a little baby and had to be rushed to hospital. ‘Cos the uncle was laid out, about 1917 or whenever, he was brought home. They didn’t, I don’t know – but you see the funny thing to me, because it would have been quite expensive and that’s why you know, if it’s a sort of Lord something’s son would be brought home, but most people wouldn’t. Whether he got that mixed up, I don’t… maybe he was a seaman or… I don’t know. But I know somebody was dead and he drunk the dish of carbolic under the, something, and he had to go in hospital.

So, but was it his grandmother who was the one who laid people out?

Tommy Roberts Page 26 C1046/12 Track 2

Yes, yes. Who couldn’t pronounce her ‘r’s. Talked like that.

Did you meet her, was she…

No, no, they were all dead. All dead. None of that, I never met. ‘Cos he was born in 1916 my father. And yeah, in the middle of the First World War of course but he can remember, I mean you know, it was different then. And then his elder sister was courting when he was a child, to the son of the man from Peckham with the Lynn, the timber… smart, posh open-back car outside the terraced house and everything. And they’d be courting, when you’re courting you can go in the lounge, couple, you know. And my father was sent out for two boiled eggs so they could… and he said he wanted a boiled egg, but there was only two, you know for the courting couple, [laughing] so they could have a boiled egg with their tea. Funny isn’t it? And he said he could remember sent out for two boiled… but not for three, you know, he couldn’t have one. Yeah. ‘Cos they’d get their tea there and all that and the door’d be shut and they’d be left on their own in the parlour wouldn’t they? Courting couple, have a talk and everything about their future and everything [laughs], all that kind of thing. Mm, mm.

So did you ever meet his sisters?

Pardon?

Did you meet his sisters, who…

Well yes, Eve was the mother of John Lynn, my cousin – the older sister. And Ivy. Yeah. Who lived, the family who lived in Slough. They were all from London really. ‘Cos Uncle, Ivy’s married Uncle Ernie, Uncle Ernie and Uncle Ernie, they come from Brockley. There’s all that kind of south London, Forest Hill, Brockley, going towards Brixton, it’s that area of London. My father, of course slightly different, New Cross – oh no, then they moved to Brockley, I think that’s how they met mother, because my father had moved to Brockley or something. Maybe they were bombed out as well, I can’t quite remember, but my father moved to Bromley in the house of his mother’s brother. He was quite wealthy,

Tommy Roberts Page 27 C1046/12 Track 2 had shops, had these – Maine’s they were called, they were like a chain of shops you know, where they sell kind of linens and drapery and all that kind of thing, yeah.

It was doing quite well?

Well I think they were kind of quite, I mean the rich relation was always seen, but I think my father worked there as a fourteen year old and said he only got two and sixpence for the week. He was mean, very mean man, you know, very, very mean. [laughs] But I suppose you’re always mean, if you’ve got the money and they haven’t, you’re always gonna be mean aren’t you, even if you’re probably not so mean as you think. You’re never gonna do right are you, you’re never gonna get a good press. No, as I always say, if anyone wins the lottery they’re gonna give the brother-in-law who wants a dry cleaning shop and the sister’s boyfriend’s ready and wanted to go… you’re never gonna get a good press winning the lottery are you? You know, there’s only, they’re all gonna lose their money ‘cos they’re not experienced and they’re all gonna say you’re a mean old… or a mean woman or whatever, aren’t they? You know. That’s where you have to dosh it out very, very carefully. [laughs]

What was the attitude that you picked up when you were a child towards meanness, to do with money and so on?

Well, we were never mean. My mother was careful, they were very, quite clever with money really. My father was very clever with money. But not mean, they’re not mean. Although I was quite an admirer of meanness, I always found it a, you know that real mean, you know that – I always remember years ago, the very, very wealthiest man with hundreds of houses in London, always standing in the rain waiting for the bus to come. D’you know what I mean? You know. That kind of thing, I’ve always admired that. My father was a bit like that, he was a bit funny like that. He’d only give a sixpence tip or something. You know, he wouldn’t… I remember giving over… if you give an over generous tip he’d look round and take some back and put it in his pocket. But I always felt, I kind of quite admire it in a funny way. It’s not a very nice trait, but you know, it’s, it’s hard to get I suppose and you look after it and you have a, you have to have a respect for it. I’ve never had enough respect for it, my problem, you know. Got to respect it, it’s

Tommy Roberts Page 28 C1046/12 Track 2 something you always need. It’s like food, you’re always gonna need it and you’ve got to have proper respect for it. And it’s hard to come by, and it’s easily gone. [laughs] That’s what it is really, isn’t it?

So that’s the…

So I was brought up a bit like that. Mm.

And when you saw your…

We was a little bit more affluent I suppose than most people, I suppose.

Why was that?

Well my father was in business, you know, he had a business. He used to make ties – Roberto Neckwear, in Deptford Bridge, Deptford. And he used to make ties and he started it – and when he come out the army we moved and we had to move to Deptford Bridge because he was sewing up ties in the ground floor and we lived in the basement. You know, cutting out the material and sewing the ties. He got, like I think he got some coupons for buying material with and he could buy seconds, because before the war he’d been a traveller for, he’d been a traveller for…

[End of Track 2]

[Track 3]

Quite an interesting firm. Silks and rayons. Oh, not Rubins – they was in Great Marlborough Street, just round the corner from the – what’s the famous theatre there called, Great Marlborough Street? London Palladium. Yeah, on the corner they were. Not Rubins – oh, I can’t think. But he was a traveller - he wasn’t, he was a traveller’s assistant, you know and the traveller with the bowler hat got on, he had to carry the big suitcase with all the samples in, round all the… So he’d gone round all the… so he knew all like the dress houses in Mayfair in the thirties and things when you know, like the, you

Tommy Roberts Page 29 C1046/12 Track 3 know designers and all that in the 1930s, because he would travel round selling them the silks and things, you know.

D’you know some of those names?

I’m trying to think. Rahvis Sisters and – I’m trying to think. Ooh, I can’t think. Norman Hartnell yeah, would have been going just about then, the young one. Yeah, he would go in, you know, he would sell them the – he was only assistant so he only carried the bag. That’s why he said he walked with a slight limp, he always had to carry this great big heavy bag. It’s why he hated carrying anything, he wouldn’t carry anything [laughs]. He had years of this great suitcase. And so yeah, that’s what he – he did that before the war which was… Then he kind of… so he always had – I think he had a little car in the late thirties. You know, so they instead of, you know, he could go sort of to the Farningham Social Club and throw the medicine ball apart and – little bit better, if you know what I mean, yeah. ‘Cos he probably earnt five guineas a week instead of you know, whatever. ‘Cos it all come to an end with the war ‘cos he had to go into the army. But I can’t think, not Ru… I can’t think of, quite well-known firm they were. But I think they gave him a little bit, even in the army they – wouldn’t give him his full salary but he got a quarter of his salary every week - even in the army they sent him as a, ‘cos he was…

As a retainer?

Yeah, because he was in the army and all that. Mm, mm.

And would these samples, would they have been imported or…?

Yeah, I think this firm originally had come from Germany. Course they had to get out in nineteen thirty… you know, I mean – now there’s a funny story, again, with that you see. There’s more to all these things than you… He had to go, oh I can’t think of the name of the firm, I keep saying Rubin, it’s not Rubin, it’s – may come to me. But I think the writing was on the wall ‘cos he was Jewish in the early thirties, so he went, but the wife wouldn’t go. And the son, one son stayed behind and joined the SS, believe it or not. ‘Cos they were half German and somehow he, you know, bit… he was very, he wasn’t,

Tommy Roberts Page 30 C1046/12 Track 3 they got the documents and yet, you know. If you sympathise… so actually, it wasn’t you know, so half the – the mother wouldn’t go and the son wouldn’t go. One son went, I think one, or the daughter went with the father and the son stayed with the mother.

So your…

‘Cos they were supporters of – not… and they were married and you know, it was an incredible thing really.

They were supporters of?

Well supporters, but yeah, they weren’t anti-Nazi, no. But the father was – yeah. You wouldn’t have thought that. That’s never recorded anywhere, that. Never recorded. True.

So…

I’m saying, it’s hearsay, but I believe it to be true you know, I believe it to be true. They was half, or the mother was a half… or the father was Jewish, she wasn’t, but they probably married and become… he’d turned, maybe become a Catholic or something. You know what I mean, I don’t know, and it all got like kind of complicated with the forms and whatever and you know, but they were, they didn’t want to leave Germany and he joined, I think he joined the Hermann Goering division or something, the son, you know.

So that was your father’s brother?

No, no, no relation. Who my father worked for.

Oh I’m sorry. Right.

The firm he worked for.

I see.

Tommy Roberts Page 31 C1046/12 Track 3

You know, he was quite kind to him, nice to him, the man. And I can’t – they were a famous… because you said, where did the cloth come from. Well I think they were very early on using manmade fibres and course the home for that was Germany ‘cos the technology was there for manmade fibres, wasn’t it? You know, early kind of rayons and things, you know. America invented nylon. But the technology wasn’t, it was German the technology. Anything ersatz like that is always, you know, like you know, cars that can run on petrol but it’s not real petrol, you know they were good at chemistry, you know. You know, the Germans. ‘Cos a lot, not only they had Jewish, clever Jewish living there ‘cos you know, before the war as well as sort of, you know, those kind of you know, physics and chemistry they were very good at. So I think there was, and I think my father even had to go – he said to me in 1938 he had to go to Germany to get you know, some patents for this technology, for this thing. But you know, manufacturing. I don’t think he got ‘em, I don’t think they would allow him to take ‘em out the country, you know, whatever. I think he come back through, on the train through, you know – the war hadn’t started, but you know, come back through Holland and whatever, come home. So he trusted him to do that, this man. But he couldn’t go hisself, obviously. So yeah. I can’t think of the bloody name of the firm and I’d really like to. Anyway, that was it you know. So he was a salesman, selling fabrics, silks and that and whatever to the dress trade, before the war.

Where was their base in London though?

Where was the base? Where was the offices?

Yeah.

Well, on Great Marlborough Street.

Oh, that one.

You know, opposite Liberty’s. Where the London Palladium’s up the side there isn’t it and what’s that called… what’s that city in Scotland called? Anyway, I can’t… Great

Tommy Roberts Page 32 C1046/12 Track 3

Marlborough Street there, the London Palladium is not in Great Marlborough Street, it’s in that other street.

Yeah.

What is it called? Not Aberd…

Berwick.

No, no, Berwick Street’s in Soho, it’s different, no. Yeah. Great Poland Street’s a bit further on. But anyway, it was based there, you know, yeah. So he’d go there in the morning and off he’d go, walk round selling the textiles. Before that, first job had been in the silk mills in Lewisham. That is on the River Ravensbourne, because the Huguenots came there where Lewisham, you know there were Huguenots, Huguenots came there and course they were the silk, you know, they knew about silk and weaving. And there was a silk mill. It’s because it had a… those days, probably a wider, more flowing river, even from, than a hundred years ago, they built a silk, they become a silk mills. That’s why there’s names in Lewisham like Silk Mills Alley and you know, there’s a little bit of history of it. And that’s why you get the loganberry tree, you know, the tree because silk worms live on those trees. But, I don’t, I think the silk probably come from China, the raw, you know, it was woven. It was woven and he worked there, in the silk mills.

What was he doing?

Well he was watching the, you know, I mean he was fourteen, no sixteen year old boy out of school, first job, looking after the mills. And it was night work, ‘cos it was kind of depressing then, you know, it was hard to get work. In night work and he’d sit there and he was only young and the bobbins going round and he’d kind of fall asleep, but it was dangerous ‘cos if he fell asleep and there was a flaw in the cloth it’d be weaving so there’d be like hundreds of yards with a flaw in it, so if he did fall asleep and woke up, there was a flaw, you had to stop the machine, change it – ‘cos you’d get the sack if they caught you – so you’d kind of take that whole bit of flawed material and how they’d get it out, they’d wrap it round their body, the flawed piece of material, they’d be wrapped round their body,

Tommy Roberts Page 33 C1046/12 Track 3 put their clothes back on and walk out the mill so it was never discovered that there was a flawed piece of silk ‘cos you would have been instantly dismissed for being asleep on the job.

So, would he have been…

And he had a friend there who was studying Russian and he’d use the time at night to study Russian. [laughs]

Why was he studying Russian?

I don’t know. I always say, why did he? He said, well he had some fixation in his brain about going to, that they were gonna need Russian, you know, Russian’s gonna be a required you know, language to be taught at school, something, I don’t know. He had this sort of thing, you know.

So…

Whether he’d made it up or not, but that’s what he told me.

So your father, aged sixteen, would have been in the mill. Would he have been kind of watching other workers doing their…

No, no, no, just – yeah, I think he was just a low paid, just a machine operative, you know. But knowing a little bit about silk, making of silk and fabric and things. So from that he must have written to – Rosen’s is the firm I was thinking of – must have written to Rosen’s asking for – must have been advertised in the Daily Chronicle or something, a job going for a trainee salesman mustn’t there, I would imagine, and he would have written off for the job and gone for an interview and got it. ‘Cos he was a you know, short thin sort of man, you know and I suppose he had, pleasant you know, pleasant sort of… and he obviously got the job, they must have liked him.

What did he look like?

Tommy Roberts Page 34 C1046/12 Track 3

Probably, I would have thought he was about sixteen, twenty-six, thirty – yeah, about eighteen I would have thought. Mm. And probably done two years as the assistant. And then I think the assistant – I mean with the salesman. ‘Cos it was a big thing being a salesman in those days. You know, you wore a bowler hat, well everyone wore a bowler hat. My father would have, you know, if you were a commercial traveller, as I say, you wore a bowler hat. So anything in the commercial life is a, you wore a bowler hat. You know, if you was in the office, in a factory, you wore a bowler hat.

Can you describe the suit that he would have worn?

Yes, I think he would have had a sort of, probably a two-piece suit and not, charcoal grey, you know, dark grey two-piece suit. Smart shoes, stiff collar and – he would have a stiff collar and tie and you know, that, you know, to be respectable going into these premises with his card, you know. ‘Scuse me, I represent’ you know, ‘I’m the agent for Rosen’s and we’d like to show you our new range of satins and silks’. And they’d say, ‘Alright, alright, lay them out on the table, let’s have a look’. And he’d lay, I suppose he’d lay his samples out. ‘I don’t like that at all.’ ‘How much is that one?’ ‘Alright, we’ll have the aubergine, the gold and the cerise, those three.’ ‘Forty yards, forty yards, twenty yards.’ That’s how it was, you know.

Would they have been expensive?

They would have been quite expensive. Mm. They’d have been quite expensive, you know. But of course they used to sell rayon, but mixtures. There wasn’t much mixture, these were pure silk, but also these mix… ‘cos rayon, as I say about this technology, being German, you know, they would have had, they was – well, Courtaulds took it up here, Dupont in America, but Courtaulds took it up to produce it. And he would have gone round these, Mayfair, you know. I mean I can’t think, but all those dress houses, all those people, you know. And then I suppose he would, you know, the stores as well, ‘cos they’d buy piece goods, piece – rolls of this and that and the other, you know, whatever.

So it must have been quite big money we’re talking about.

Tommy Roberts Page 35 C1046/12 Track 3

I would have thought so, yes, yes. All paid on account. And I, yes, I think he did, after he’d been there… I think he did quite well, as I say, he’d have a car and whatever and he must have sort of – I don’t, God knows, maybe six guineas a week salary or something, I don’t know. I don’t think he was hard up, no.

And did he have the sort of social skills that you associate with that kind of work?

I don’t know that really. I would imagine he just went and went home and did his day’s work. I don’t think he would get too, wouldn’t get too cocky about things like that. He wouldn’t start saying well, I’m going round there to have a glass of, meet him in the sort of saloon bar of the thing, the customer, I think you’d have to keep a low profile on that. I think he’d be very careful not to get too socially… yeah, I think it might have been frowned on. [laughs]

But he was at ease with that kind of meeting and greeting and so on, you know?

Yeah, I suppose he was doing his job, you know he was trying to sell fabric. And he’d go back and show the new lines or, ‘Now Roberts, I want you to push this line, we’ve had a…’ you know, we’ve got… ‘You know Roberts, see if you can make this, we’ll make this a bit better price and see if, you know, get that out of your bag first’. You know, that kind of way of going on I would have thought. [laughs]

So, did he tell you about his work, or did you ask questions?

Never told much about work, no. He was like my grandfather, the other, my mother’s father would never tell anything about the First World War. He never mentioned the war, I think it was so ghastly. Never mentioned once. And he’d been a cavalryman and this, and whatever. Never mentioned once. Never mentioned once. I only once said, years later, I said must have been… he said, well it was too horrific even to talk about. Anyway, that was that, you know. But no, occasionally he’d say things, my father, but I don’t think it was sort of there to have a big discussion about it.

Tommy Roberts Page 36 C1046/12 Track 3

But how would you have got to know about his business?

Well I did ask him things, you know, you build up a picture and he’d say what he used to do. But a little bit… my father, he’d romance a little bit, kind of romance a little bit with it.

What, he would sort of…?

Yes, yes, I don’t know why. He’d like to make it a bit more – I don’t think it was anything, he just liked to tell me a story really.

Did he have, did he ever meet sort of, you know, upper class or famous people or anything in his line of work?

Well he never mentioned it. I mean there was very, very sharp lines drawn in those days. I mean it was very, very clear cut. You didn’t, I mean you could be… you know, there was no, unless you was extraordinary charming or some witty, or something going for you, I mean you could cross a boundary, but very, very – you didn’t, you know, you didn’t cross a boundary and your employer might not… you know, there’s lots of things you’d have to think about. I mean you didn’t go out with the, go into the dress factory in Mayfair and make a friend with a couturier and all go out and have a lovely time and weekend or something, you’d get the sack. Number one. Number two you probably would feel uncomfortable and number three you’d probably got your own life, you’d got your own life what you lead anyway, you’d want to go home weekend where you lived ‘cos you’ve got things going on.

So, could you sort of spell out for me the kind of, the differences, who would be in which sort of category. You said the couturier would be in a very different sort of place to…?

Well, they’re all in trade, that’s number one. So the upper classes would, you know, they’re all in trade. I suppose if you was a famous, if you was a well-known couturier with wonderful clients, you could sort of mix with the daughters of the aristocrats, like a Cecil

Tommy Roberts Page 37 C1046/12 Track 3

Beaton or something, you would get into a different world. You could enter into a different world.

[Interruption]

[End of Track 3]

[Track 4]

Yeah. So I was asking you, I think what I wanted to know is, when you became interested enough to ask your father about…

Oh I see. I don’t know. I think I was always interested and we always had… ‘cos he, as you say, he, you know, he made neckties and so there was always around the house. Even the fifties there were fashion magazines and things, or Menswear Weekly and the American menswear magazine sent… you know. So I kind of, I was a bit surrounded with those, you know that kind of thing.

You were surrounded by them?

Not surrounded, but there was always magazines, you know, these kind of fashion, you know, imagine fashion, so you become aware of it all really. But later on.

And were they the sort of – what end of the market were they, the magazines? Were they sort of…

Oh, they were, no they were, well after the, as I say, war, he come out and he started making ties and selling ties. There was very little of anything after the war, so if you made a half decent product you’d sell it very… Kind of, you could build something. Still had to be sensible and quite clever, but they, I’d say lower end of the market. Not really low, but lower to middle end [laughing], if there’s such a scale in making of ties, I don’t know. But let’s say a lower middle end of the market. I mean they would go and you know, so again

Tommy Roberts Page 38 C1046/12 Track 4 he was travelling with his ties. He started his business and then it started up and then, you know.

So he had his own business?

Yes. Yes.

And, did he have a name for it?

Roberto Neckwear. I think he’d been in Italian campaigns in the war and Sicily and he always liked Italy and he called it Roberto. Roberto Neckwear, mm.

And could you describe the ties, I mean were they…?

Well, I can remember the very early ties – they were sort of, they were American, he was selling those sort of mad ties with like Mickey – not Mickey – with sort of cartoon… either, dice, tumbling dice on there or a sort of nude, you know, a pin-up. There were taken from American ties, the designs. That’s the very earliest I can remember, ties, these ties. And he’d print up and I suppose he would pinch the design basically, and print them up, and have them printed and then cut them you know, into ties. The printing would be you know, you can’t just do an all, overall for a tie, if you want to get a design you’ve got to print a certain way, to cut one piece of tie out of it, if you see what I mean. And I know the first ones ‘cos I used to, I thought they was great, they were wonderful, as a child I always remember the vivid imagery of those ties.

What sort of years are we talking about?

We’re talking about, we’re talking about 1947, forty-eight, forty-nine. That’s what we’re talking about now. I suppose they were spivs’ ties, that’s what they were, weren’t they, if you think about it. A young bloke, this was before Teddy boys or anything, the young blokes liked the American, the American fashions. Just after the war they wanted the brothel creeper, the crepe soled shoes and the baggy trousers and the spiv’s overcoat and

Tommy Roberts Page 39 C1046/12 Track 4 tie, that’s what they were. And then he’d make these ties and of course they sold like hot cakes.

When you say that he pinched the designs?

Well he would sort of, I suppose he’d get a magazine, menswear, fashion mag… American and see the designs and slightly altered ‘em and do them hisself. Mm. I don’t think he bought, he didn’t import the ties, he made the ties. Course it was very expensive to import in those days, he couldn’t have done that anyway, you know. But he made these ties and they were, I can remember there were kind of like palm trees on them and things. Highly collected now I would imagine.

Can you describe the process – how did he put, did he…?

I remember one tie I can describe. I think it was, there was a kind of like cartoon characters – I think it was Bugs Bu… They were cartoon characters; Felix the Cat I think. And one was on the phone and the phone wire went down the tie and the other one was at the phone at the end of the tie. I always remember that tie, I don’t know why. [laughs] As a small child you would, wouldn’t you?

So, how did he, I mean did he have like a studio where he worked or…?

No. When we left Allerford Road, I think we lived with a relation for about three or four months and then he got a, like a small shop with an upstairs, like a shopfront downstairs and the two rooms upstairs place, on Deptford Bridge, Deptford. Forty-seven Deptford Bridge. I remember it. And downstairs he started this tie business. Then he had another man come in as his partner and they started this tie business. And I think they then, they employed someone to cut the fabric and they probably took the cut work out to machinists, local machinists to machine up into ties. When they come back they would box them and pack them and you know, it was a business. And off they’d go and, he’d go round with the designs and he would sell the ties and they’d say, ‘Oh I’ll have two dozen of that, one dozen of that, half a dozen in the four colours of that’, you know, have orders. Come

Tommy Roberts Page 40 C1046/12 Track 4 back, collate the orders, cut the fabric, sell the, go out and deliver the goods and invoice out for the ties.

I’m getting a bit confused now. So there’s people, there’s…

A small factory, I suppose you’d say. You know, I mean by the time we moved upstairs there were probably two machinist, a cutter, my father and his partner in the ground floor producing ties under the name Roberto Neckwear, which was the name that they you know, started up making ties. We will be upstairs, my mother, father and I, living in two rooms above the shop. He didn’t sell retail, it was just a factory, a little unit, factory unit in the shop. Because the shop, it was a bit run down, Deptford Bridge then and the railway, the trams run outside and it was kind of Deptford Bridge. Again, that’s Deptford Creek, there’s a sort of river beside there as well, called Deptford Creek that goes down to the Thames and most of that part, the rear of it, was the flour mills – not J Arthur Rank, the other big firm. Anyway, there’d be flour mills there, ‘cos again, because of the creek, because of the water, because you need water to…. yes. Yeah, to work the machinery. Mm. So, the silk mills was probably a mile further up, a quarter of a mile away further in towards Lewisham, so he ended up back after the war on that same bit of, stretch there where the Quaggie turns into Deptford Creek, working there doing this, in this small, in this little building. You know, like a terraced sort of, it was a terrace of little shops.

And would they have been silk ties?

I’ve got a feeling they were rayon. Yeah. I don’t think silk was used, it’d be too expensive. Rayon, mm, I think at the time. You know, that’s what they would have been. Mm.

And you said they were sort of lower middle…

Cotton, cotton mixture. But that was later on, rayon I… doing these prints. And he’d have a – I think he had this friend who was a bit of an artist, a commercial artist, who would draw out the designs. Give him the finished artwork, they’d silkscreen print it on to rayon fabric, cut it out and that’s how they make the ties.

Tommy Roberts Page 41 C1046/12 Track 4

D’you know who that…

That’s the very beginnings of it, you know.

D’you know who that commercial artist would have been?

No, I think he would have been a friend of his before the war. He’d been a friend of his and he lived – I always remember ‘cos he was quite funny, he was a bit of a kind of, well he’d be described as a bohemian at the time and he lived in a sort of basement flat in… I never visited it, but I was told he lived in a sort of… in Kensington. I suppose he… bit of a sort of bo… to our way of, my parents’ way of… bit of a bohemian life. But he used to do these designs. This phase didn’t last very long of course, and then it was into more production and whatever.

But you said that the market was sort of lower to middle sort of market for these ties. What were the sort of customers for this kind of cartoon style sort of…?

Oh well I think all shops were hungry for anything like that. Any menswear shops, any who had a sort of slightly younger market and I mean Berg’s and people like that and all these shops all over London, north London, you know they were hungry for goods, for this kind of thing. They all had the customers, they didn’t have anything to sell ‘em, that they wanted. You know, they would import from America and things and… but something home-grown and for the right marked price would have been easily sold, I would imagine.

So, this, it sounds like…

I think there was a bit of a problem getting, original, getting the coupons, the fabric coupons, enough in quantity to start up with. ‘Cos it was, you know it was a rationed fabric, textiles were rationed. That soon lifted I think. And I also think you would get coupons if you started a business and then you could get more coupons.

So, like you’d be encouraged to start businesses by…

Tommy Roberts Page 42 C1046/12 Track 4

Yeah, and I think where he’d worked before the war at – what was it, what did I say the name… Rosen’s. I think he went there and the man had like stuff and if it’d been laying on the floor for years, you didn’t need coupons for old stock. So I think he had some old stock and he did him a deal, he lent him, you know, he let him have it on sale or return or something, the rolls of cloth and course he’d got something to print on. Cut up, make it into ties.

So then your father would take the ties to the stores – is that…

Yeah, you know, or he’d take the samples around.

Ah, but when he actually sold the ties that they’d ordered?

Yeah, yeah. Then, if he was in London, he probably did. But then, you know, I think he had big customers up in the north of England, quite early on. Think he went up on a trip around – there’s a big firm called Green… Green – they had a shop in every major town in the north of England anyway. Big firm, Green something. I can’t remember their name, but I think he’d become, he liked my father and he said you know, it was the first time he had a big order. He went in there and saw Mr Green, whatever it was, and the man said, ‘Ooh, what have you got then?’ And he said, ‘Well’ – he said he had to stand, wait outside in the passage for about two hours. He said, ‘Come in’ and he went in with his bits, samples, you know. He said, ‘Lay ‘em out on the table then.’ And he laid ‘em out. He said, ‘Oh yeah. How much? What’s the best price?’. He said, ‘Alright, well I’ll have thirty-six, thirty-six, thirty-six, forty-eight, forty-eight, forty-eight of those’. And he thought he meant forty-eight ties, but what he meant, he said, ‘No, forty-eight dozen’. So he got this enormous order. You know… go on, you seem to be confused.

No, no, it’s a very stupid question I’m sure, but why are they things like thirty-six, forty- eight?

Tommy Roberts Page 43 C1046/12 Track 4

I’m only making that up and I’m just saying, you know, when you order, you know, if you’ve got thirty shops to provide for, you wanted eighteen ties in each shop, that would make forty-eight dozen you’d need wouldn’t you?

So they’re like multiples of six we’re talking about?

Yes, yeah dozen. That’s how you sold, you know, you was always on dozens. You know, you didn’t sell in tens, you only sold in dozens.

Oh, so that is a stupid question, sorry. [laughs]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he thought he meant forty-eight ties, you know, four dozen ties, but he didn’t, he meant forty-eight dozen. So he come back and well, how were they gonna finance it, so big thing, big struggle to find and I think he had to take a partner in over it. I don’t know, whatever. You know, then and borrowed the cloth and they produced these ties and sold them, it was a great big fabulous order and it put him on the road, yeah. You couldn’t borrow from the bank or anything like that. There was no way to get it financed in those days, you know. People would, to open a shop they would, you know, they would work in a shop for twenty years to get enough together to open a little shop or something. There’s no way, you know, the ordinary people would get like money from banks, there’s no way, you know.

But you said that you could get coupons for starting up?

Yeah, everything was on coupon, it was rationing. Whatever you wanted was you know, a bag sugar, you know if you wanted a new skirt, you’d have to have enough coupons to go and buy three yards, four, five yards of fabric. But that only lasted for a certain time, but after the war you had, it was a restricted you know, everything was restricted because we was bankrupt, Britain, and all the money was going to America to pay for the war loans. We had nothing. Every car had to be exported. That’s why cars, old bangers were expensive because there was no cars, unless you had, as I said, you were a doctor or something you would get yourself a car. You know, you couldn’t just go and buy – there was a second-hand car market but you’d have to pay a lot of money for some old second-

Tommy Roberts Page 44 C1046/12 Track 4 hand car, ‘cos there was, all production, most of it was needed to go and be exported to produce currency to send to America to pay for our war loans. D’you understand that?

Mm.

D’you know what I mean?

Mm. Yeah, yeah.

That’s why it’s difficult. So it was more difficult after the war than in the war. Things were more, there was more things to buy when the war was going on than when the war was over.

Did your father still have a car after the war?

He did, because he was a traveller, so he kind of got – if you could get, I mean you’d have to go and pay like three hundred pound for some awful old banger ‘cos there was nothing to buy, but if you bought a car he could get coupons for petrol because he was a commercial traveller.

From where, where d’you get the coupons?

Government. You know, allocation. You know, there was obviously a black market in all these things of course, and I’m sure there was a bit of – course it was all that, you know, everyone knew you could give the copper forged coupons or something and you know, that was what it was. You know, it was a bit of a…

Were you aware of that when you were young?

No, not really. Not aware of that at all. So that’s how you know, he kind of, so he had an old – I can’t remember – an old Sunbeam Talbot I think it was.

What did you think of it?

Tommy Roberts Page 45 C1046/12 Track 4

Mm?

What did you think of his car?

Oh, fantastic. Well, no-one had a car did they? You know, they had an old motorbike and sidecar, the wife’d sit in the sidecar. I mean there was no cars, no cars.

So it set you apart?

Oh we had a car, yeah we used to go out in a car.

What was that like?

Quite nice really wasn’t it, [laughing] I should imagine. As a child you don’t think of it. You don’t think they haven’t got a car, we have. You don’t think like that, but I’m just thinking afterwards, I suppose it was. And I could take a friend with me, we’d go to the seaside or something. It was rather wonderful wasn’t it? Thing was always breaking down of course. In fact, see, he was a bit of a traveller my father – this old Sunbeam, he actually took to Spain. In 1949 no-one went to Spain. Holiday.

By himself?

No, no, with me and my mother and my uncle I think, and his wife went. ‘Cos he was a builder and he also had a car. So I mean, I think the restriction was lifted then, it wasn’t going in 1949. But you couldn’t take your currency with you so everyone had to put twenty pound in their socks and things ‘cos you was only allowed to take five pound out the country, so that’s what they did. And then you went down to say, Dover. And course with the ferry, there was only ferry, the crane come and lifted your car on. But that’s how the ferry… you know, there wasn’t many cars going there. Off you went, dropped off in Calais and you drove over, through France, over the Pyrenees, down to Barcelona. And there were no visitors then, you know, that was a long time… forty-nine, there was only a few people going on holidays then, there wasn’t many.

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Can you remember that holiday?

I can remember it. I can remember it. I can remember being a child and seeing a woman’s legs in front of me with butterflies all embroidered – ‘cos they have silk stockings with all embroidery on. And I always remember looking at that, ‘cos I’d never seen that, you know. I mean I wasn’t looking at the legs, I was looking at the butterflies embroidered. Can remember things like that. Buying a lovely comic, it was in Spanish and – glossy comic, I can remember that. And I can remember going to Sitges, you know, which is a resort near Barcelona, and going on the beach. And I can remember, there was an Englishman who obviously was on holiday or lived there or something, those days, and we lived, this hotel, and this man – it’s just things that stick in you know, as a child. Well obviously this man rented one floor of this hotel – whether he was a writer, I don’t know why – you know, whatever. And in the morning he got up and he’d go for an hour on the beach and there’d be a man with a white coat with a chair walking in front, he’d be in dressing gown and slippers walking behind and there’d be a woman with a tray walking behind him. And he’d set up on the beach; the chair’d be put down, the little table was there and his tea laid out and he’d sit on the beach and he’d be the only person on the… there’d be no-one on the beach. You know, I mean that was Sitges, it was… I can remember the crocodiles of Spanish children in those little smocks all walking up the road going to school, I can remember things like that. But there was no, I mean it was just sort of just started really.

So you saw a comic there?

Pardon?

You saw a comic, a Spanish comic?

A comic, you know, I read a comic. I don’t know why, ‘cos it was glossy and all lovely… I just remember being bought a comic. My parents must have bought me a comic, don’t know why, you know, anything. But I remember the street and I also can remember – ‘cos this isn’t that long after the civil war – and I can remember being pointed out a building

Tommy Roberts Page 47 C1046/12 Track 4 with all holes in it, saying well that’s where the, you know, they machine gunned all that. I can remember as a child being told where there was fighting in the civil war, ‘cos not that long afterwards really. And it was a poor country Spain, so they didn’t have the money to rebuild, not really, not properly. Barcelona even then was a lovely pa… you know, it was a beautiful city with all lovely paved streets. It was a beautiful city even then, Barcelona. I mean it’s always been a grand city, Catalan city, you know. Wonderful architecture. Art nouveau shop fronts and things. But the civil war had been like, well after the beginning the war really, thirty-eight, you know it didn’t die off. And course, we’re over forty, it’s only ten years later and I think you know, there’d been, nothing much had changed.

But when you were pointed out these bullet holes…

And I also quite – ‘cos then, ‘cos you’d come from London, England, a policeman in those sort of strange hats in the street with a rifle over his shoulder was quite a, as a child you was, ooh my goodness. That was kind of something standing there, you know. ‘Cos they was all like, you know.

So when you saw these bullet holes and then you saw policemen with rifles and so on…

I thought it was exciting, I liked all that, mm.

Yeah, I mean as a child it was…

Yeah, yeah it was quite unusual, you know. I mean I only… ‘cos they were pointed out and I think my father must have asked somebody and he said, oh they did this. And I also remember they were, we walked down the street and they were doing that sort of, not intarsio, the tile, little square tiles, coloured tiles, they were tiling an area there and I can remember looking at these coloured tiles being sunk in the cement and they was obviously refurbishing a public courtyard there.

That sort of parquet sort of thing?

Tommy Roberts Page 48 C1046/12 Track 4

Intarsio, whatever. Yeah, you know, little… I forget, there’s a word, Italian word for it. You know, you go to Spain, you see it, you know you sit there and all that, you know. You can see it can’t you? You know, like, things like that stuff. Pyrenees I can remember, because – I didn’t see it in the car, I wanted to see it, so the boot was opened for me, the boot flap down, I was roped in the back, I was tied in the back of the boot to go over the Pyrenees, so I could look out the back and see all the thing, you know.

How? What do you mean, you were tied into the boot?

Well, ‘cos for safety, I wanted to sit in the boot and the boot flap comes down, so you’re like looking out to the back and I said, ‘I want to sit in the back’. So my father got some rope and tied me in the back, you know, round the, you know, so I could safely sit there while the car slowly went over the Pyrenees.

It doesn’t sound very safe.

Up the mountainside.

It doesn’t sound very safe.

No, not by today’s standards, but then it was and it was very exciting and smashing, it was really lovely.

What was the view?

Views? Well I can remember pine trees and the trees. I can sort of remember it. Rushing water, ‘cos it’s – Pyrenees. But you stop, stopped occasionally by the police ‘cos it was unusual. In fact it was so unusual to have a foreign car in these places, you stopped – you might stop in a village to get overnight or you might have stopped to get some petrol or something - the locals, Guardia Civil guy in the hut, he’d be sitting there with his hat and boots off, snoring and he’d see this foreign car stop and he’d rush in and pull his boots on and put his uniform on, his hat on, come out to see what it – yeah, yeah, it was an event.

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You were the event?

Caused a bit of a… we was the event, you caused a bit of a furore.

As a child, did you like being in sort of, the centre of attention?

Yeah, I think I did. Mm, I think I did. Yeah. Yeah, I’m not a background boy, no, no. Don’t think. I like to, well they’re the things that still stick in my brain, so I obviously wasn’t. Funny things stick… oh then it all broke down, the car anyway, broke down. We had to come home, rest of the way home on the train, with my mother.

But you said you noticed this Spanish comic and you mentioned the shop fronts, were you aware of you know, signs or posters or anything like that?

I think I must have been a little bit. I must have been a little bit. I wouldn’t be aware of art nouveau as a style or anything. No, I think I was slightly aware of it, a little bit.

D’you think that was encouraged?

I liked the signs, it looked kind of, it was different wasn’t it, you know, the signs and the… It was quite grand in those days, you know, the buildings in the centre of that city and even then, you know, impressive it was.

And what were the colours?

Hard to tell, I suppose just all brighter than London wasn’t it, ‘cos the sun you know, the brighter sun. Don’t think we went in the middle… I think we went in May, yeah I think May we went. Which is always the best time anyway. And I remember that holi… I just remember it, you know. But I do remember going down to the, Dover docks and the car being lifted on by a crane, I remember that. There was only about fourteen cars going across, you know. And I mean ‘cos it was an event. Then I remember a load of stu… I think there was, there were a load of – oh yeah, there was a couple of old sort of, even in those days, like banger car, old banger car, an old hearse or something and I suppose they

Tommy Roberts Page 50 C1046/12 Track 4 were students at the time, I think there was probably a [inaudible], there were definitely these students, all drinking and shouting and dancing on this ferry and it was a bit choppy and then, it was only half an hour, they were all being sick and ill and everything. We were kind of [inaudible]. I think we just sat there and looked at it.

Would your father drink?

He would drink, yeah. He wasn’t like a beer up bloke, boozer. Silently he’d drink whisky.

Silently?

Whisky and water. Not silently, but yeah, he could drink, mm. I never saw him really drunk. I don’t think I can see him… I mean I have seen him jolly of course, but yes, he’d drink, mm.

And what about your mother?

No. Could turn a bit nasty after a few gin and tonics.

What’s a bit nasty?

Well, be a bit nasty to you, bit sort of cutting.

Can you give an example of a cutting…

[laughing] It sounds terrible doesn’t it? Well she might say drunk, she’d look at me and say, ‘The baby’s got mixed up in the hospital, obviously’. That kind of thing. [laughs]

And did that hurt your feelings at all?

I think it did, of course it does, doesn’t it? Mm. It does. A bit of that kind of thing. Mm, mm. She’s still a bit like that. I don’t know if I was a disappointment or whatever, I don’t know. Perhaps I was a bit big or something, you know. I think it annoyed her.

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You were a bit…?

Bit overweight, annoyed her. Annoyed her. Mm. Yeah, just annoyed her I think.

Why?

I don’t know, I think it did a bit. I don’t know why. Mm, it did. It just annoyed her.

Was she sort of…

Quite smart. Got her nice clothes, smart.

So, concerned with…

You know like, even when I went to school as an eleven year old my mother’d take me the first day and they say, oh it’s your older sister and all that, you know. Which is funny, kids don’t like that kind of thing. Don’t like their mothers smart, no, no. [laughs]

Just want her to be a mum rather than…

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t say she’s over the top, but smart. The other mothers were all a bit – it was early fifties and like you know, they were a bit dowdy weren’t they, you know. An old coat on and thing, you know, a scarf and…

What would she wear?

Wear a nice suit. I think she had a mink coat, I think she had a mink coat. No it wasn’t mink, it was something… I don’t know. She didn’t wear that to take me to school, but I don’t know, like swing back jacket and high heels sort of, you know.

Was she interested in fashion?

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Yeah, she was interested, she liked clothes. She was interested in fashion, yeah. She knew, she would go for special shoes. She said I’m going to the model shoe shop and I was always thinking, I wanted to know what she was talking about – the model shoe shop. Either it’s a shoe shop, but what d’you mean a model shoe shop? They’re like one-off, model, design shoes? I was always trying to work it out, what it was, but I think they were like shoes that were made only short amounts of and they didn’t sell, perhaps. I don’t know. The model shoe shop. They sold these shoes, perhaps they’re something like… [End of Track 4] [Track 5]

Maybe the Elephant and Castle was it, or something? I don’t know. You go and buy, see what they’ve got in stock and things, you know.

Would they have been like designer shoes then?

Yeah, be designer shoes. Yeah. She wasn’t a shoe, you know, hundreds of pairs of shoes or anything. I can remember the shoe thing. Yeah, she was always kind of quite aware of clothes. Looked quite good in, looked good in clothes.

Would she wear you know, make-up and do her hair in a certain way?

Yeah, make-up, yeah. ‘Cos she was quite young you see, you know, didn’t need too much make-up. She was, I mean she was, I mean let’s say it was nineteen… let’s say I was ten years old or something, well she would have only been twenty-nine then or something, you know what I mean, you know. A young woman, wouldn’t she? You know, she wasn’t like most mothers were sort of thirty. Well, thirty-six then was different to being thirty-six today, it was you know, different. Different.

You mentioned the Italian prisoners of war earlier, you know, sort of calling to her and all that. Did…

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I don’t think she encouraged it. No, I don’t think she sort of stood up [laughing]… but I think I waved, you know, yeah. I think you just, to see it more – perhaps she did enjoy it, I don’t know, you know.

You don’t know?

I don’t know, perhaps she did. Nothing out of the way, you know, just sort of banter really.

But d’you think it was important to her…

They marched in the middle of the road, that’s right, in the middle of the road. They marched right in the middle of the road.

So…

But that was very, I mean they were all… you know, it was only after, by forties, you know… They used to march by every, I think every morning they marched by. I don’t know what they were doing. Obviously gone to the railway tracks and doing some work or something, you know. And then they were suddenly gone ‘cos they got repatriated and went home and that was the end of it.

Can you remember their uniform?

They didn’t have uniforms, not prisoners of war. Yeah, they did have – I do remember – what they had was an overcoat with a big black square in the back, sewn in, to identify them as prisoners of war. So you have a coat and on the back would be a big black square, so you’d see all these big black squares going up the road. Yeah, I remember that. That’s to identify them as prisoners of war. They weren’t like, you know, they were sort of in between status. They weren’t like criminals in prison, they were men who’d been, fought, just prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, it was, you know. But I think you know, they had to give ‘em, they couldn’t have ‘em all just sort of laying about all day long, whatever, you know they tried to, you know it was one of the things that they tried to

Tommy Roberts Page 54 C1046/12 Track 5 give ‘em something to do. So, you know. Whatever. Where their even encampment was I don’t really know. Couldn’t have been far away but I don’t know.

And, what would you have been told about them?

Never told anything about them, it’s just a memory I can remember. I don’t think it was ever discussed or nothing, I can’t ever remember that. It was just [laughing] the sort of the visual thing as a child you remember, wouldn’t it, all these people marching by. I don’t know how many, it might have been only a few, but it seemed hundreds at the time. But thinking back, probably there was about eighty of them or something, sixty of them. In like, in a crocodile, you know. I couldn’t see any guards or anything. I don’t think you have guards, you know, they can’t do anything, can’t go anywhere.

Would you ever have had any kind of interaction with them at all?

Never, no. I can’t think. They might say, ‘Oh the bambino’ or something. You know, something like that. I vaguely can remember, you know. ‘Ah, the little bambino’ or something like that, as they walked by. You know, ‘cos they’re in what they’re doing, you know. You know, they’re only going to have their di… doing this bit of digging and nothing to do, so just something to sort of wave to isn’t it, as you – they wave to you or they waved as they walked by. They were all friendly.

Were you aware at a young age of them sort of looking different to English men or…

No, I don’t think I can say that, no. No. But I must have known they were Italian prisoners of war, mustn’t I? Not German prisoners of war. Yeah, I must have known that. Yeah. How I don’t know, but I know they were Italian. ‘Cos I think they, ‘cos they sing these songs. I’d say, ‘What are they singing mum?’ [sings] Funiculi, funicula, da da… you know, and all that kind of thing.

Was it important to your mother that she was sort of attractive?

I would have thought so, yes. I think so, yeah. I think it was quite important.

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How did she meet your father?

I think she was a young, probably young woman of eighteen or seventeen. Whether he’d been in the army then or not, might have just been in the army, maybe just before he went. I think they, they used to go to the, I think they used to go to the Forest Hill Lawn Tennis Club, which was a kind of swimming and all that. A place in Forest Hill where you could have, they have a bar and you could have a drink and play a game of tennis, sit about in the sun or you know, whatever. And I think that’s, I’ve got a feeling that’s – and I don’t really know – but I feel they must have met there. Obviously met, went out like, that was it, you know.

Would your father have had to approach her parents or anything like that?

[coughs] Well I suppose if they got together and all that and you know, in those days wars, you sort of, they got married quite quickly, people did. I bet he’d go and see her father and say, alright, you know and what do you do and all that. I don’t think he was that friendly, but still, he wasn’t unfriendly but I don’t think it was, they weren’t dancing in the street over it, you know. [laughs] And… and I think he got his leave, come home in uniform, they got married, I suppose that was… well, I don’t know, 1941, you know, whatever and I come along in forty-two. February forty-two, a year later I suppose. Maybe six months – no I don’t know, but I know they got married and they had a whatever, wedding breakfast in Casa Cominetti’s which was an Italian restaurant in Catford and he told us, my dad’s elder sister paid for that, the in-laws and that, you know, whatever.

Was your father good looking?

I don’t know whether he was good looking, a bit kind of like, a bit dark, a bit dark skinned. Not dark, but slightly. Short, thin, quite pronounced features. Kind of funny, well he was in a funny way, you know. I think women were attracted to him, you know. [laughs]

Were women attracted to him after he was married, d’you think?

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No, I think probably always were, I had a feeling, I don’t know, you know, I mean… I mean I don’t know. I think he’d go travelling and if he had to stay overnight he’d go to the local dance and meet someone and you know what I mean, all that kind of thing.

All what kind of thing?

I don’t know. Nothing more elaborated than that. I think he was keen on ladies and that, yeah I think he was very [laughs]…

Can you remember as a child, can you remember how he would talk about ladies?

…I can’t remember as a child, no. He was quite sort of, he was always quite nice about people. In fact that got into me, he was always you know, he’d always, he’d tell you, everyone is – you know, even people who weren’t very nice, he’d be nice to. And I’d say, what… He said, but yeah, everyone’s got a reason for being like that. He was kind of like that my father. He sort of accepted people as, even if they weren’t very nice, you know, he’d say, ‘Well there might be reasons why he’s not’ or something, you know. ‘Well she’s not… might have had problems.’

So he was quite sort of liberal, in a way?

He was quite liberal in a way. Well, more intelligent than I was, intelligent he was, my father. Knowing, quite clever. You know he’d do a… I mean at the very end of it all I think we did a pub quiz and I’m struggling, you know, and all of sudden he’d say, oh yeah, yeah. No, he said, oh no – that’s right, eels always go to die in the Sargasso Sea, you know. That’s a question… things that, I was surprised, you know. Or he’d say, no, no, no, that’s the second town in Bolivia, or something, you know. I’d think, how did he know that? [laughs] Never see him read a load of books or never go to the cinema or anything, you know. No, no. Funny isn’t it?

He didn’t do those things?

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Pardon?

He didn’t go to the cinema or…?

No, he couldn’t bear it, no. I knew he was one for kind of, that kind of, people. Go to, you know, where there’s something going on or people, but I don’t think he’d sit in cinemas or particularly listen to the radio or read books much, no.

So how did he sort of cotton on to this idea that he could use you know, cartoon sort of designs…?

Well I think he kind of used… making a tie is complicated, there’s certain skills to it, but it’s not the end, it’s not like making a wedding dress is it? It can be done in quantity and if there’s not a lot of fabric about at the time you’ve got to make the most use of the yardage, so it was rather clever to make ties. Ties, there was, you know, everyone had to have a tie. You know, everyone wore a tie and there was a demand, specially these young, colourful, new young blokes come out the army all had a bit of money didn’t they? All had a gratuity, they wanted some clothing. I mean I thought he was kind of clever really.

But why did he choose to put sort of cartoon characters…

Because I think that was, I mean that probably was a very, very short period of time, the first thing he could cotton on to I suppose that he knew that there was a demand for. These fancy ties. And then of course after, you know, I mean there’s plenty of, soon after there’s plenty of traditional stripes and things, but he was always one to have a go at making a suede tie or a… you know, and he’d like in the late fifties, he’d make the ‘Slim Jim’, like a slim tie. The time he did the fabrics and the printing was only a short time I think, then he just went and tried to buy nice sort of stripes, nice colours and what they made. They made tie material of course, it was a whole thing that they made. Very narrow, not very wide, very narrow width of cloth. It doubled over so you could get one, you know. There was an expensive way of making ties which is all one piece of fabric, or there’s a cheaper way and that was I think you stitched it halfway across, I think he sort of stitched halfway across.

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So he moved on from the cartoon characters and so on to a more, what was – what did it turn into?

Kind of nice fresh, kind of bit more kind of nice woven ties. You know, they were very boring then, everything you know, and I suppose he put a little bit of uplift to it all. I’m trying to… I can’t, you know it’s hard for me to remember. I wasn’t really ever go… went to… and once we moved out from that building and lived somewhere else, you know, I wasn’t really encouraged to go round there. I think he liked to keep families away from work. I mean I don’t, I can never remember my mother ever going there. She helped him in the very beginning I think, helped in machining the ties at the very, very beginning. But when he got on to the factory I don’t think he, I mean I don’t think it was encouraged like for families, me or my mother to go round the factory.

But did you ever go round?

I think in about twenty years about twice.

And can you remember it at all?

Mm. Well they moved to a bigger building and then there was a, like a machine, there’s probably twenty machinists. Still people come and take bundles to work at home, the outworkers. Cutters, two cutters. Then there were salesmen as well.

And what was the building like?

He had a building built. Built a building, which was quite, you know… He built a building on Deptford Bridge, on the corner, still stands. They built a sort of modernist built building, as a factory.

That must have been very unusual.

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Yeah. Well, course property there was very cheap, you know. I mean you know, I mean it was. They probably built a factory for three thousand pounds or something.

What was it like?

Just a square building, very unadorned. I always felt it was very, very – very austere really. I think his partner was a bit of an austere man. There’s not a sign of any like, nicety, you know. It was all concrete floors, very plain. I mean they had an office with a desk in, but there was never a cabinet with you know, very plain, very aust… But my father’s a bit like that in a funny way, yeah. Some ways. He didn’t like a load of, he couldn’t have a load of bits, it was annoying. [laughs]

So he didn’t like any kind of…

Ornaments. Not really, no. A few things. But then when he moved I think somebody pinched, break in and pinch it all and he got fed up with that, so I think that’s what put him off really. In the house, that was later on, you know.

But can you remember when you did visit his factory – were you impressed by it or…?

Yes, because I thought oh, it’s a factory, it was quite you know, I mean you think, oh it’s… And if I’d go on the bus as I’d pass, friends, I’d say, ‘That’s my dad’s factory’. ‘Cos you’d say that wouldn’t you? They’d be all impressed and – but my friends always loved my dad because he was always very friendly and very nice, you know. And… I’d see his car outside the factory. He wasn’t there all that, ‘cos he was travelling. He wasn’t one for, I wouldn’t say, he wasn’t a workaholic, my father. You know, if the bell went at five o’clock he’d be the first one out the door. Wouldn’t be the last one slaving over a counter. I think he’d be the first out the door, not the last. You know, he wasn’t one of those blokes who has to work till three in the morning on clerical work, you know, he was like that. And I used to go – ‘cos I never found out, only recently when he died, I found out – ‘cos we lived in Blackheath at the top of the hill, he would go, drive down to Deptford, park his thing, say he was going off wherever he was going, Enfield or something, whatever, get his samples, then he’d go to the Lyon’s Corner House. Lyon’s, you know – remember

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Lyon’s, the teashops? Lyon’s teashops. In Lewisham and sit in there for half an hour or more, an hour, reading the paper. And this sort of thing he did, well no-one ever knew, but that’s what he always used to do. Then he’d go off, you know. Funny isn’t it? Sitting there, yeah, funny isn’t it? On his own. Funny bloke. Funny man, really.

Was he?

Bit of a funny man, yeah.

Why d’you say that?

Annoys me, a bit selfish, but you know, whatever. But, funny bloke. Occasionally I’d go off, very occasionally mother said, ‘Well take Tommy out for the day, you’re going to…’ – where was he going, I don’t know, he might be going to Notting Hill Gate or something ‘cos he used to go round London a bit, or he might be going to the City, and he’d take me with him in the car. Which is alright for a while as a small child, but then he’d go in and he’d take his samples and he’d be in there for about an hour and a half and you’d be sitting there and oh, got bored to death. It was torture, you know.

Were you not allowed to wander off a bit or…?

Well not really, you sort of sat there, well you didn’t have, nowhere to wander to really. I mean you’d sit outside, you know. ‘Cos he’d park, leave the car outside, there wasn’t parking meters or anything. There wasn’t, you know, wasn’t that… Central London was always quite busy with vehicles and lorries and that. So you kind of, little trips round London really. I mean very, very early fifties, mm.

And what were your impressions of…

I mean bombsites and all that, ‘cos I used to play on the bombsites, you know. ‘Cos it all got bombed, you know. I can remember walking down Oxford Street and they were rebuilding Oxford Street, it was a big bombsite, you know. Hoardings along there.

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So what did it look like while they were rebuilding it?

Well, you did like, you know there’d be sort of, they’d put of sort of hoard… like, you know, build kind of like ply… wooden kind of railings to stop you looking into the bomb… and then there’d all be adverts and that, you know, there’d be hoardings along it. And then maybe the pavement would be a bit narrower ‘cos they was doing the work and they were rebuilding London, all over London. Central first of all, ‘cos that’s where the money was and money to finance it. Outer suburbs, the bombsites lingered on for a long time, because – in fact they were still kind of rebuilding bombsites in the mid sixties, really. Yeah, you know.

Was there a sort of order in which they would rebuild it? Was there a hierarchy of you know…

No. If a hospital maybe had got bombed, they might rebuild that. But no, it was only ‘cos if you, you know, you had the finance to rebuild it. I mean they got grants and things, they got bomb damage. I always remember my grandmother said there were always you know, there were people fiddling the bomb damage. [laughs] You got bombed out, you put in for two wardrobes instead of one or something. D’you know what I mean? But my grandparents like I say, they were very straight, they wouldn’t even do that you see. No, they’d never do anything like that. But my grandmother was a bit annoyed and said, you know, we should have got a few more things when the bomb damage money was coming, you know, and all that. But they’d only put down, they’d have put down exactly what they’d lost but other people put in like, you know, load of bed linen. You know, more things. Human nature, innit? But yeah, London was a sort of building site a bit, wasn’t it? And then not only, see not only were they rebuilding, they were knocking down the old as well, which was a shame. Like a place like Canterbury, course they ruined, ‘cos they could have saved all that mediaeval stuff; it was bombed but it wasn’t beyond the point of repair. But they didn’t like anything old, those people, so – you see, you’ve got to remember all those kind of councillors and people in those days hated old, hated anything old. I don’t know why, they hated antiques or anything old. ‘Cos they were brought up with it. Brought up with the two up and two down, the bath in the tin and the lavatory at the end of the, you know, down the end of the garden if you had to go to the loo. There

Tommy Roberts Page 62 C1046/12 Track 5 was public baths. So you know, they couldn’t bear anything old, all these little Georgian terraced London houses. If they could rip ‘em all down and build tower blocks they’d have ripped ‘em all down. It’s only ‘cos they run out of money that we’ve got some left. They hated anything old. So a place like Canterbury who had that mediaeval fronts, they could have saved it all, ‘cos it was a mediaeval, you know. No, they’d pull it all down, put a nice modern block, fifties modern block then. People wanted modern blocks with proper facilities. You want lavatory inside and a bath and – d’you know what I mean? You know, and it was all – I mean more damage was done with that than Hitler bombing London of course.

But what was your impression of…

And the development of course, there was money in it as well. You know, Charlie Clore and people like that, the big developers, they knew that you know, you got the grant, you know it was cheaper to – of course it was cheaper to pull down and rebuild than it was to refurbish, that was the reason. But actually, when they worked it out, if you just refurbished all those little Georgian streets, give people lovely back gardens, nice… they would have got as many people in that area as when they were building them tower blocks.

But what…

Anyway, that’s a whole different ballgame.

But I mean, what was your impression of that kind of thing when you were young – were you aware of them ripping down old things?

No, no. No I was quite, aware of it quite early I would have thought, ‘cos I always liked old things and you know, I always had a feeling for things and you know I think by the kind of early sixties I kind of, was kind of slightly aware of all that really.

So you were in your early twenties, or…?

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Yeah. Because things started, there’d been a Victorian Society and in you know, places like Islington they saved it didn’t they, like Canonbury, ‘cos there was like the Victorian, you know – I say the Victorian – the Georgian Society. They had strongholds, those places like Islington, certain areas. Highgate, Hampstead Heath, Dulwich a little bit. They’ve all been a bit of money. You know, if they hadn’t had them people with that who were kind of MPs, people, establishment people with a voice, there would have been a lot more ripping down of course. But, working class areas didn’t get anything… care less.

So…

Blackheath, you know, and things were left, you know. Only where bombs dropped, then you had to rebuild in that.

So around where you grew up, like Catford and so on…

Catford wasn’t that badly bombed, it’s the outer suburb. It was bombed anywhere like… bits of Catford, anywhere where the German aeroplanes were going back to their base and they had extra bombs. ‘Cos you know like, they’re only like sort of anyone, they’re frightened, they’re supposed to bomb right on the top of London and a bit frightened and come back a bit early and drop a few bombs. There’d be indiscriminately bomb anywhere. You know, certainly along the river. Originally of course they was industrial, that’s why the East End got done ‘cos they was after the docks. But after that, they just started indiscriminate bombing, you know. The V2. I can remember, oh I can remember a flying bomb, you know. Wuuuuuuuuu-uh! Puh. I can remember seeing a flying bomb and I think, you know, and I didn’t sort of think, but when the engine stopped, that’s where it hit, that was it, that was the indiscriminate bombing, you know. Most of them didn’t get through of course, the RAF brought them down, most of them, but a lot did get through. I can remember that, that was a later phase in the war, that was the last fling. That was Hitler’s last fling really. But I can remember them.

How did you feel when you heard that noise?

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‘Cos they weren’t very, you know, they’d veer off if they were flying, you know the actual, you know the actual tracking you know, was crude in them days. So the thing would probably be going errrrrrrrrrrrr… So you know, it was supposed to be going to London, but some poor bloke in Orpington’d get done or something, you know.

Can you remember how you felt when you would hear that noise? Where would you go – would you go into a shelter or…?

No, no, ‘cos we’d see it fly by. So you’d know each time, you know. If it was overhead, course you’d get in the shelter then. But my grandfather used to always go in the shelter, but my mother wouldn’t. She says, ‘Oh we’re not going in that old shelter’. [laughs]

Why?

[laughing] I always quite admired it afterwards, really. She said, ‘I’m not sitting…’ you know, he was always in the shelter, my grandfather. And she said, ‘I’m not going in no shelter, I’m gonna sit in the front room’. I dunno. Well it wasn’t, by then you know, if I was born in forty-two, I’d say in forty-four, all that, it wasn’t like the Blitz, that was well over, that, but this is the flying bombs.

Was your father, your grandfather a sort of a nervous character or…? Or was your mother…

No, he couldn’t have been really, because he was covering when the – he’d been a regular soldier before even the First World War. Yeah, I suppose he got older and you just kind of got like that a bit, you know. Being bombed out already of course, would have made a difference. Already been bombed out. He’d had one basinful. But that was never mentioned much, I don’t know much about it, but I know they lived in, they lived in Forest Hill then they were bombed out. I suppose they all come up the road one day and there was no house left, you know. Or half a house. That was quite regular. But I don’t know how many - forty thousand were killed or something, but probably there was much more. Because the house was bombed in means they all got killed in it.

Tommy Roberts Page 65 C1046/12 Track 5

Yeah.

You know. A bit unlucky to get killed actually, bit unlucky. In the night or you was in bed or you know, ‘cos most women working, they had jobs because of war effort, so they was out in the day. It was a bit unlucky to get killed.

Did your mother work?

Most people got killed at work, you know, they’d bomb a factory, that’s where a lot of people were killed. I think she did something, but I never knew quite what she did. Before I was born she did something. I don’t know whether she used to work in a factory, you know, armament things for a while, but never talked about it so I never, you know.

And then after, afterwards when you grew up a little, did she work at all?

Not really, no. Not till later – then she did, she suddenly got, when I was much older she suddenly got this terrible thing, wanted to go and work and crazy jobs and things. Anyway, that’s another story.

What would she have done all day?

Mm?

Your mother, what would she have done during the day time?

Well, after we moved from above this thing, we moved to rented, a house in Blackheath Rise, a biggish house. It was about four guineas a week so it was quite expensive then. Either, or something and sixpence and that. For some reason, you know, it was a quite big sort of house. And you know, housework and a woman used to come in twice a - well two mornings a week now, I can remember that. Rita or something, I can’t remember her name. She always had one of them 1940s hairdo – you know, with the scarf all tied up. Wedge heels, she wore wedge heels. Funny old thing. My father didn’t like her, you know. Anyway. She… and what else did she do? That… you used to come home for

Tommy Roberts Page 66 C1046/12 Track 5 lunch – people used to go – if you was in a factory, you’d come home for lunch, people did then. Unless of course you’d do lunch, and then had this, and then there’s dinner, I suppose, a tea or something. And then you know, I suppose that’s what you do.

And would you have come home from school for lunch?

I think I did, I don’t know how ‘cos it – I must have rushed in, rushed out, you know. But I’ve often thought about it, I did, I did. I don’t know how. I must have rushed home, must have took me fifteen minutes or ten minutes and rushed out again, you know.

So, and your mother would have been, if she didn’t do housework…

I’m trying to think. Well she would go and visit her mother once a week like they do, you know what it’s like, or her mother come round once a week. She wasn’t sort of in the W, Women’s Institute, she wasn’t that kind of woman. I mean… quite know what she did really. Got bored I think, she got bored. I think she got bored. But it was quite a big house. Oh then she got lodgers, she decided it’s too big this house – she was always a bit like that, my mother…

[End of Track 5]

[Track 6]

Oh we can’t all live in this house like, you know, four or five bedrooms. We’ve all got to live in two rooms and it’s all got to be – unnecessarily so, but give the thing, you know. So she had all these lodgers. We had lodgers for a while.

What can you remember about that?

Well I can remember these sort of lodgers coming. Mr Said who was, I think he was an Egyptian chemist. And a schoolteacher woman I can remember vaguely, and then lodgers, but that didn’t last for long. I think about a year of that and then you got fed up with that.

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How did you get on with them?

Alright really. I was pleased when the… ‘cos I used the – when she went, the schoolteacher woman, I used her two rooms, two rooms to do a museum, yeah. ‘Cos there’d be a museum.

You did that?

Mm.

What was in the museum?

Oh different things. I think everything I found, and put little labels on and all different bits I found on Blackheath or digging about and bits of things of the First World War, little bits of things and that. I remember putting labels on and charged threepence to come and have a look.

Did you?

[laughing]

Did people come?

[laughing] I think they did, yeah. Not just friends.

Early signs. [laughs] So where d’you think you got that idea from?

Yeah, I was always kind of interested in things like that, really. History a bit. I was always kind of interested in that and I don’t know what the – trying to think what the ob… they could have been the things. Oh I think in this loft of this house I found a load of army kind of, everything, of gas masks and bits. And then my father went, he went to this auction every afternoon, once a month, or about the month he got this obsession about it so he used to come home with great big piles of bits of old kind of muskets and things like

Tommy Roberts Page 68 C1046/12 Track 6 that, you know. I don’t know what it was ‘cos he was never really interested in anything old, didn’t even like anything old much, but he sort of got obsessed with going to this auction. Perhaps he’d had a drink or a couple of things and went with mates and, oh I’ll have that, you know. Three guineas for a great big – oh I think he bought a big sideboard. We had things there that he’d bought, furniture and things. In Friendly Street, there used to be a famous auction up there.

Can you remember some of the other things?

Yeah, I can remember bundles of mus… well now, Arabian sort of muskets inlaid with ivory – ‘cos I remember it, ‘cos I used to look at it – inlaid with ivory and gold and silver thread and things. But they all got kind of, I don’t know what happened to them. They broke and then left in… But a few nice things, nice quality and things. Bundle of these muskets, I always remember that, ‘cos you would as a child, wouldn’t you? And I think I had a real cutlass around me, [laughing] you know what I mean, with a scabbard, but I think that was taken away. Things like that. People weren’t so aware of like danger, you know, kids weren’t things, you know, there wasn’t this kind of thing about danger and this is all dangerous. You know, not much, I mean I can’t think of that really. Kids used to play on bombsites, they’d be right up there on top of bare brickwork and I mean you… Suppose there was accidents.

You didn’t know that anyone had accidents though?

No. Only fireworks I think kids, I don’t know. But then I’ve never been madly fond of fireworks. I don’t mind looking at ‘em, but it’s always wet and it’s always horrible and it always, somebody gets their finger blown off, you know. And I never saw the pleasure in it. But anyway. Yeah, you know, you was more, but people weren’t so aware of… we used to go out playing. I was always careful a bit, ‘cos you know, you go to the pictures, there’s always sort of, bloke in a raincoat creeping about and that, you know. But you sort of knew as a kid, you said, don’t sit next to him, you know. He’d come and try and sit next to you, you know, and there’s always that. And I mean now, but I think you were aware of it, you know. Well children are children, not going, you know. Don’t sit next to him, or laughing and run off and things like that. You know, you took it like that

Tommy Roberts Page 69 C1046/12 Track 6 really. I don’t think that any harm come to you, I can’t… you know, occasionally I suppose things did, but I can’t remember much.

But would your father or your mother have warned you about things like that, you know, sort of…

Well my mother got upset – we went to Holland. I must have been about eleven and I don’t know whether she stayed in a hotel and… a man, and he was going to – what was he gonna do? Something interesting, would appeal to me as a child. I can’t think what it was, he was going to look at some racing boats or something like that, you know on the canal. Something, I don’t quite remember. So, and my parents wanted to go and do something, they were going to, whatever, I wasn’t interested. And he said, well Tommy can come with me if he wants, you know me, and my mother said, ‘Oh good idea, you go off with him. Oh right, see you then’. You know, come back at four. Well I didn’t, I mean not that he was quite sort of, I mean he didn’t, you know he was quite pleasant, to my mind anyway. He certainly didn’t, no nonsense whatever, you know he didn’t go peculiar, but you never know what’s behind people’s brains do you, but anyway. But I didn’t go back at four or five, he didn’t get me back till about seven thirty. My mother went berserk. You know, I think she hit him. I think she smacked him round the face, this man. I kind of remember that, yeah. ‘What have you been doing with my son, where’ve you been?’. You know, ‘What?’ ‘Oh very, very sorry.’ This bloke was all apologetic, ‘I didn’t realise…’ I remember that. Mm.

And how did you feel when your mother slapped him?

Well I don’t, I can’t tell you. That I can’t remember, how I felt in any way. Wondering what the scene, fuss was I suppose. Kind of instinctively knew. Couldn’t put it into words, but you kind of instinctively knew. Yeah, but he got me there too late and she had been obviously worrying. You know, could have gone anywhere, they’re in a foreign country. I mean, you know. She obviously, you know. So that was that, I remember that.

Was that the only time that she’d behaved like that?

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…Well I can remember being young, funny that kind of area, because I think me and my friend were playing Indians and a kind of, we took our vest and shirts off or something ‘cos we was doing, playing torture each other. And so then tying each other’s arm, I think tying you know, I think I did it to him then he tied me up, something like that, like a game. But my mother come in and went berserk. Yeah.

What did she do?

‘What are you doing?’, you know. I said, ‘We’re having a game’. I can’t remember, but it seemed to be a bit of a scene, I can’t remember. You know, it was knowing that it was getting him into trouble and Duncan went home and that was it. Yeah. Because afterwards you think that it might, it would, maybe wouldn’t you, you know. But it was very innocent, but of course it must have, I don’t know.

Oh do you think she thought there was something a bit…

Yeah. I think maybe. Or it was a little peculiar.

And that would have been a big worry for her?

That would have been a big worry for her. I suppose it was, yeah.

Did they ever, you know, talk to you about sex and things like that?

No, not that I can remember. No, no, no. You’d heard my father’s bit, ‘Look’ you know, ‘there’s a nice looking girl innit?’, you know. Well I was a kind of, you was treated as a bit of a grown-up by the time I was thirteen. ‘Cos I was caught smoking, it would have been seen. Then I was caught smoking at thirteen, he said, oh smoking and… [laughs] Then I wore long trousers suddenly, it didn’t matter and I always stayed up till like – you know, other kids all had to go to bed and I could sort of stay up till about half past ten or whatever, you know. Then they used to go up, they used to go and have a drink and things, go out and I used to be there and stay up. In the house with a ghost in it. But I got used to the ghost and didn’t mind it.

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What was that?

Well, my mother was very [laughs] sensitive to things like that and she knew that there was obviously a ghost in this house, old house where we lived in Blackheath, there was a, you know, I think it was haunted, I think it was because you would hear noises and walking and things. But in the end – and I was on my own as a child and I got sort of used to it in the end. I’d say, ‘Oh stop walking about’. And it didn’t matter, you know, I didn’t take any notice of him.

Do you kind of believe in that sort of thing?

I… Well not sure. I do kind of, very slightly. Very, very slightly. But I do think there was a presence in this thing, I’m sure of that. I’m sure of that. It might have been a physical thing like winds and thing, but it seemed to be a little bit more than that, you know. But if you analyse it, perhaps it probably – but there was some strange things did go on, you know. Fire would suddenly go out or something. Or the – the lodger rushed out of the room, he saw an apparition he did, and rushed out the house he did, he saw an apparition. A ghost, he saw an apparition in the hallway. And ‘Euh euh euh, euh euh’ and all that business, you know. [laughs] ‘Huh huh huh’. Had to be sedated. [laughs] But he was a chemist, I mean he wasn’t a, you know, he was a proper trained doctor whathisname, you know. But he frightened the life out of him.

But you weren’t frightened?

No, not really. Not really. No, I don’t think I was really, after a while. Used to be.

What were you frightened of, as a boy?

What my mother used to do, what other thing was about the house was you’d see events before they happened. Nothing dramatic, but my, my mother would see my father pull up outside, she’d go in, get the dinner out and think, put it on there, then nothing would come. And she’d look in the window and there’d be exactly the same thing that would occur

Tommy Roberts Page 72 C1046/12 Track 6 properly. A couple of things like that. Trying to think. I kind of, you know, I can remember somebody chopping our tree down and then going out there and the tree hadn’t been chopped and no-one there. Funny things. Very sort of like, I can vaguely remember, you know. I think I put ‘em out of my mind, but things like, I don’t think there was anything dramatic, but everyone had these, you know, these things where things happened the half hour before they happened, or an hour before they happened. Nothing like dramatic like the fire, you know fire brigade, but just simple things or somebody walking down the road. You know, kind of funny wasn’t it? In the environment of that house.

D’you know the history of the house?

I tried to delve into it. I think somebody had died in this house. Had died in this house. I think a woman had died in this house. But again, sometimes you don’t want to know all about that, you know what I mean? It wasn’t that old, I mean the house was a Victorian house, but it was a nice house, I liked the house. Big house, biggish sort of – semi- detached, but nice house. And a nice little row of houses. Mr Edney who lived at, Dr Edney who lived next door, he was an astronomer and he worked for Greenwich astron…. you know, Greenwich you know, astronomy… whatever.

Observatory?

Yeah, the Observatory. He’d worked there. In fact he’d worked when Queen Victoria… He was elderly then, you know like 1950, ‘cos sort of, well he was Victorian really, you know, going round the garden with a basket and flowers and he’d have a housekeeper, ‘cos bachelor with the housekeeper, Dr Edney. The other side were two ladies who had been concert pianists, sisters. They used to give me things like tennis – all the old… they’d say, ‘Oh d’you want these Tom?’, you know, and they’d have the flat ended tennis – you know, Edwardian or Victorian tennis racquets, things like that. And they’d been there for many years.

So they…

Tommy Roberts Page 73 C1046/12 Track 6

There was a tragedy there. The brother came, he obviously, you know the British Empire and been in the colonies for years, wherever, Africa, like the bachelor brother come home. Whether it was all ‘cos they were, not retiring, something – I think that something had happened, he suddenly appeared. You know, living forty years in wherever, in Nigeria or wherever, I don’t know. He appeared and he would go, ‘Oh hello’, very friendly, and if I say I, even then I felt he was probably a confirmed bachelor. I think he was the gay brother, you know, the eldest come back to the elder sisters. But obviously something had gone on. And was there, so he was friendly, ‘Hello’, then he said to my father, he said, ‘Oh, when I was out there I had my gun which I go shooting…’ something or other, in the bush and, ‘would you like it, Mr Roberts?’ He said, ‘Ooh no’ – my dad didn’t like guns or anything like that and, ‘no, I don’t think I want it’ you know, he said, ‘I’ve got a child, Tommy, I don’t think I want that gun’. He said, ‘Oh please have it, ‘cos I don’t want it’. He said, ‘D’you know anyone who’d want it?’ He said, ‘No, we don’t’, you know, he was very friendly. ‘Alright, thank you.’ Very nicely spoken and that, you know. So that night he shot, he put it in his mouth, the gun and pulled the trigger. At night, he pointed the gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I remember that as a child, you know.

Can you remember the sort of – how were you told about it?

There were no, yes, it was a thing, poor Mr So-and-so’s, you know. You know I remember telling somebody it was suicide. No-one had told me, it was suicide with that gun, used that gun. And so you pick up little bits and thing and it was all quietly thing, and the funeral and nothing else was ever said about it. Funny isn’t it? There must have been a lot of that then, because all these people who’d lived their life abroad, coming back, how could they settle in? I remember being at school and I used to go to this sort of what they call a church school and kind of, you get these mistresses there, schoolmistresses who couldn’t, you know, they were people who was obviously of the Anglican church, whatever it was, who couldn’t you know, they’d had years in Mozambique or, I’m trying to think of colonies. You know in the colonies, years and years and course all over, come back and they couldn’t settle in, could they? They were always Miss, Miss on their, you know, didn’t seem to, well they married, weren’t married for life, but these women on their own and they kind of just come back and twitching and [laughs]… It must have been a lot of mental problems over that. Course people just you know, you had to get on with I

Tommy Roberts Page 74 C1046/12 Track 6 suppose. But a lot of, in fact if anybody researched now they’d be surprised how many people committed suicide who’d spent their life, who’d come back and - you know, they’d got their life out there, got looked after out there and then suddenly brought back to sort of England to work in a school down in Lewisham. D’you know what I mean? Must have been a thing mustn’t it?

Must drive you mad.

Yeah, I can see that, could never settle really, no. Miss Long I think it was, her name, and she’d been somewhere or other, but she had to be found a job of course. [laughs]

[End of Track 6]

[Track 7]

Just before we carry on, I noticed a sort of Mickey Mouse theme as I was going up to…

Oh my wife had a Mickey Mouse bathroom.

Yeah.

Not my doing. I’m not – I used to, but my Mickey Mouse phase is well over a long time ago, yeah. No, but she just, I don’t know why, she just fancied it. She’s like that, my wife, she’s a bit off the wall.

But you had a Mickey Mouse phase? You had a Mickey Mouse phase?

Well I did in a funny way, ‘cos I got the permission to do it on fabric when – that was much later on, all Mickey Mouse stuff. And I used to do all Mickey Mouse swimming and Mickey Mouse appliqué t-shirts which come very fashionable. In fact they’d fly in from Hollywood to buy one. Mm. Yeah, funny isn’t it? But I’m not, you know, I’m not sort of… Comics, you mean comics played a big part of my life, with this tie… I don’t think so, I never read comics much, I always found ‘em sort of rather boring really. I used

Tommy Roberts Page 75 C1046/12 Track 7 to read funny things. There used to be a thing called [laughing] The Great Novels, Illustrated Stories of Great… - it was like a comic version of Homer’s Iliad and all funny things like that, you know. You know, War and Peace in comic form. I don’t know what made me think of that, but saying that, I’m sure, you know it was a funny thing, a fifties thing really. I suppose people couldn’t absorb a book, they had to have it as a comic. I remember reading those. And I did like, very young, it was the feel of, the look of the comic and the feel of it. Lovely you know, especially if a Beano, a Dandy just been bought new in the shop, there was something nice about that, you know there was something lovely. You open it, the paper’s all new. There is something special about it actually. Mm, mm. Yeah. I can remember having Beano and Dandy and things. Saying that, I used to buy, I did, it isn’t sort of repressed… Film Fun I used to buy, that was a good comic, I used to like that. Film Fun. And Radio Fun. Think I rather liked Radio Fun.

What was it?

Well they have Izzy Bonn, Izzy Bonn. You don’t, Izzy Bonn? No, you wouldn’t know. Used to sing that song on the… My Yiddishe Mama, you know. Izzy Bonn. He was the – I don’t know why it sticks in, ‘cos I think for some mad reason he was kind of… I don’t know why, he weren’t particularly, favourite at all. Izzy Bon. Arthur Askey and his beautiful daughter Anthea. Who else was in it? Oh. Radio stars, you know. Crazy really. I can’t think of anything else, than that. Quite liked that. Didn’t really like those sort of real boys, Hotspur and all that kind of thing. And The Eagle was a bit too kind of moral, you know. It was a bit too – what’s the word? Trying to sort of, a bit moralising and things. So The Eagle and all those kind of comics I didn’t really like. I like that sort of lowest common denominator ones more really.

The Eagle was a bit sort of… butch or something? You know, kind of…

Yeah, no, what’s the word – it’s, a bit middle class it was, The Eagle. You know, started by the Reverend something and all that business, you know. And Dan Dare and whatever. Bit too kind of – I preferred like Radio Fun I think, bit more kind of row… you know. Don’t know why, but The Eagle… Nice looking comic, beautifully produced, but I was

Tommy Roberts Page 76 C1046/12 Track 7 never that fond of it. [laughs] Used to quite like the girls’ one, Girl. Lettuce Leaf. No, Lettuce Leaf. No, but I used to quite like girls’ comic. Lettuce Leaf, this girl used to always get in trouble. No I can’t remember any more. I don’t think I went and bought it, but if I see it, read it.

Did you at some stage sort of move on to sort of magazines, you know, teenage magazines?

That was later on. I used to like those cow… but I don’t think this paper was more expensive or anything, used to be about that size they were, little…

Little sort of A5 things?

Yeah, you know, cowboys again, Buffalo Bill or Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers and stories and nice pictures and illustra… Yeah, I used to like all that, yeah I liked those. Then later on, magazines. I always found them unsatisfactory I think, them magazines. I was trying to think, I was a real buyer of magazines, I’m sure I was. I used to buy things, like funny things like – d’you know, I can’t remember the bloody name of it now. It only lasted a while, it was very good. Not Jazz and Jazzmen but – not that, oh. I can’t remember the name, I’m very sorry, I just can’t remember the name of it. Might do later on. I’m trying to think what other magazines. I can’t think now.

And did you listen to the radio? You said you liked the magazine, but…

Yeah but I was an avid radio listener, ‘cos it was just on – Sunday lunchtime it was on, always. You know, these peculiar shows wasn’t there, like The Clitheroe Kid. ‘Hello mum, I’ve been a naughty boy again’ and all that. But what it was, was an oddity really, he was a sort of dwarf. He was like a little sort of Wee Willie, you know, one of those Wee Willy blokes, the Clitheroe Kid, he was a sort of hermaphrodite or something. I don’t know what he was, he was one of those sort of oddments, but he had a high voice and he was about that high, so on the radio he was The Clitheroe Kid, it was a great big show, big show it was. All listened to that. Then they had Family Favourites, ‘cos you’d sometimes get the modern songs being sung, so you’d maybe listen to that. Then there was Life with

Tommy Roberts Page 77 C1046/12 Track 7 the Lyons – Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels. Then there was, there was about four shows all about that sort of time of the day.

But they were for children, the shows?

Very young, yeah I think I did listen to Dick Barton and PC49, yeah. In radio, yeah, I did. There was things for the children. Destination Moon, I think that was on the radio.

Is that the…

About a spaceship, you know.

Isn’t that the Tintin thing?

Film. What?

Destination Moon, was a Tintin…

Film.

…book.

But I think it was a series on the radio, Destination… I think it was.

Was it?

You know, for like sort of old boys of ten and twelve and, you know.

Having the astronomer living…

But I never listened, I never listened to like Radio Luxembourg and all that. I never bothered with it. It was a nuisance to fiddle about with it all, could never be bothered to do that really. No, never sort of bothered with all that.

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I was just wondering, because you said you had that astronomer next door and I don’t know, a lot of…

I never had much contact with him. He did give me some beautiful books once, which I promptly sort of lost. He give me a lovely set of books. Races of the World, funnily enough. Bit funny really, very kind of, these books – beautiful like volumes, all in tissue paper, whatever. I suppose they were about 1890, the set of volumes, and I looked at them and even then I thought that was peculiar, what it was, it’s that period of time and really sort of like, you’d see a picture of a German scientist with callipers measuring a negro’s forehead and all that. Yes, yes. Yeah. I can sort of remember it, yeah. You know, with like measurements and you know. That sort of – Races of Mankind – I always remember, I don’t know why it stuck in my mind. I suppose to get these set of books was one, but I remember these pictures, they were a bit like that, it was a bit funny. ‘Cos there was always those theories in those… not only German, you know, American and people had theories about races and things like that. And there was a hairy man. But it was a photograph, I always remember, it always stuck in my mind, the hairy man of, like sort of Outer Mongolia and the hair grew all over his – I suppose really he was a bit hairy and he just let it all grow, his eyebrows and… but to me, he was a man covered in hair which was, you know, I thought that was… you know it was kind of, that all stuck in my mind.

It sort of harks back to the old music hall thing in a way, doesn’t it?

Yes, what the fairgrounds? Sideshow thing?

Yeah, all that stuff, yeah.

All that stuff. Well people did, they didn’t have the you know, they had to, what the latest you know, sensation so the latest something to the thing. But then again, I don’t think we would you know, go to, we didn’t go, well my parents wouldn’t go to the fair, funfair or anything. I’d go as an older child, you know, older boy ‘cos you’d meet mates and girls in those days, but I can’t remember us all walking round a funfair together as a family or something. Circus we went to, but then everyone did. Bertram Mills’ Circus, Olympia.

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But then of course people did all these… you know, there wasn’t anything to do, so there’d be thousands of people’d go to the circus at Christmastime. Go to Bertram Mills’ Circus. I can remember that.

What did you like about it?

…Well I think as… going with my parents, you know there was none of that enthusiasm for the glitter. I don’t think my mother really liked it and my father was bored and you know, so you was [laughing] fucked off a bit, you didn’t really have the full thing of it all. But you know, like my wife’ll say, ‘Thomas, ooh look at that, innit wonderful’. But they were a bit like that, they didn’t really like things like that.

They didn’t kind of enthuse you with…

No, I think they liked to go out and have a, go to a, go out and have a sort of cocktail party or something, more that sort of thing. I don’t they wanted to sit in the circus. No. But they, you know because different days then, now you know, the young mother’ll take the children and his friend and they all go dressed up and have stars on their face or something. You know, they make an outing of it, but them days, they didn’t, you know. They didn’t. And my father, he did go to the theatre at Christmas, ‘cos the firm’s outing, where he’d take all the machinists, was a show in the West End. You know, you’d go to see the Crazy Gang at the Victoria Palace or something like that, you’d go to this thing. And I was carted along as well, ‘cos my mother goes, I was carted along, which I quite liked, I quite liked it, it was fun, you know I enjoyed it. ‘Cos it was always, I was always involved more in sort of adult-y things really, much chil… you know, like the Crazy Gang was always a bit near the… saucy and I was kind of, I mean it wasn’t a children’s show really, but I would go to these things. And he’d take ‘em all for their Christmas do. Ten minutes into it, my father’d be fast asleep. Snoring until it was time to go home. It was torture for him I think, anything like that, you know. Yeah, I don’t think he liked anything like that. Didn’t like it, but he wasn’t interested in anything like that. But then he’d be interested in other things. He liked to sort of go out and I don’t know, with mates and dancing, dancing and you know, people. People, you know, interacting with people. Not very good at sort of sitting there looking at things. You know, I don’t think so.

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Television, he’d watch the news, but that’s all he really interested in. ‘Cos we had television early you see. We had a television in 1949. No-one had a television, you know, very few people. They’d come round and watch the television, it was a sort of a bit of a thing.

People would come round to your house?

Yes, like Dr Edney come in ‘cos it was the first outside broadcast of the rugby final and he – or the cricket, something he wanted to watch – and he come round and watched it.

What did you like to watch on the telly?

There was quite good children’s programmes. All Your Own I used to like. Huw Wheldon, he actually become the Director-General of the BBC later, that man. But he used to do All Your Own, it was a kind of, children used to do things, they might build something or they would start a kind of club or, it was to do, it was kind of – bit educational I suppose, today’s standards, a bit kind of – again, bit moralising thing, but I used to quite like that. I liked that. Well he seemed such a nice man, the man. Whether he was or not, I don’t know, but I used to quite like that, you know. I’m trying to think what else. ‘Cos there were very young children’s things, there was. I’m trying to think. Humphrey Lestocq, he was a strange man. He only lasted a few years, I think he got chucked out. HL, and he was an early instigator of The Goons, he was involved with all that really, HL, Humphrey Lestocq. It was a bit sort of mad sort of TV, but I don’t know whether the authorities at the time liked, or the powers that be didn’t like that kind of thing I don’t think, no. ‘Cos they had to be very careful what they put out for children. Very, very controlled. And you know, thinking back… But of course it’d go off, the television. You’d have an hour’s – children’s hour, and then that was it, and then you’d start again at seven o’clock in the evening.

Was all…

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It wasn’t continuous TV, you know. In the Sundays just after it started Liberace had a show, which all the, every housewife in Britain watched. Biggest star in the world. That went on at four o’clock.

What did you make of him?

Oh well I quite liked it, yes, old Liberace. Yeah, yeah. My mother was a big fan, you know, big fan of Liberace. Yeah.

Did they sort of, did women fancy him?

Well I don’t know, they did like Liberace. [laughs] Mad isn’t it? Fact, we knew someone whose wife was on the Liberace train, they used to follow him in a train all round Britain. Yeah. Yeah that’s what level of fans he had.

When did you become aware that he was not quite a lady’s man?

You kind of knew from the beginning in a funny way. You know, you wouldn’t see it as a sexual content, but somehow you knew, somehow you know, that it was that, yeah.

Remembering that you know you said, was it your neighbour, the one who shot himself?

Mm.

And you said you knew that he was ‘a confirmed bachelor’.

Well, only later, but you do, you think about it eventually ‘cos the penny drops doesn’t it?

But you didn’t at the time?

I wouldn’t at the time, not at the time. But I was slightly instinctive. Slightly, very slightly instinctive about that. But I don’t think so at the time, but you know, but later on you think well course, he’s obviously you know, something like that, whatever.

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So when did you become aware of homosexuality and so on?

I don’t know. I suppose you… I suppose you’re quite young when you do, don’t you really? I mean… Probably quite young. Well not quite young, I mean teenager when you suddenly realise, you know. Then you suddenly realise that you’re not, but you know, but you think oh well, you empathise. But then I’ve always thought, certainly you know I would empathise with people who are, but though I’m not myself, if you know what I, you know. I can understand, you know.

Why did you think you could empathise?

Like being camp isn’t being homosexual. You know.

D’you think you were sort of a bit camp?

I don’t think I was really, no. I don’t think I was. I used to dress a bit like that, but then because there’d be rough and tumbles and – I wasn’t really, no. No, no. No, funnily enough I wasn’t. Although people might have thought because I used to always to have the mad clothes you see and they read you wrong. And you…

Did they?

And then I’d end up in a fist fight so it wasn’t… No, ‘cos they wouldn’t say anything, but you know, ‘cos that’s how I was, you know. After girls. If it’s a way of getting nearer to girls it’s a good idea.

What, to dress in a certain way?

Mm. Mm.

And to…

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But I liked it anyway as well, I liked dressing up, I liked it, you know, I liked it. I liked it. I used to wear my mother’s coat and things like that, you know. Oh yeah. But you know, I mean I quite liked it. Didn’t get a thrill out of it, you know, sexually or anything like that, but it just kind of, the thought of it, I suppose the visual of it and the things and trying to be a bit different, that was what it was.

So do you think you were sort of you know, consciously an outsider or trying to be or…?

Well I always felt, yeah, you know I mean it got to stupid, the point where it was stupidity, anything popular you didn’t like. [laughs] I only liked things that weren’t popular. It’s like when you first do, first started doing clothes, boutiques and clothes – anything sold you didn’t want to sell any more, didn’t like anything that sold. If it earned any money, didn’t like it. Only liked things that didn’t, you know. Too popular. Instead of saying oh make more of those and let’s make some money, let’s stopping making it. Before it even started really. You think it’s all over, the general public not even heard of it really.

You’re almost sort of…

Always like that.

…sort of anti-fashion, in a way.

Yeah, but always like that. Just interested in on the edge things. More avant garde, more things on the edge, you know. I mean, I was sort of more fond – I mean I like Elvis Presley of course, but I’m more fond of like the guy who died of drugs when he was young. [sings] I’m just a juvenile deliquent – Frankie Avalon. Something like that, singing something like juvenile delinquents and drug addict. I’m more interested in that than I would be in sort of you know, let’s all have a lovely rock ‘n’ roll song. D’you see what I mean, you know? Like stupid things. You know like people say, oh – I mean it’s a, actually it’s a seventies, sixties related – you know like dancing I always took seriously, dancing. Dancing’s a very serious thing. You either do it properly or you don’t do it, you know. And I’ve liked dancing, whether it’s ballet, I’ve always liked dance. But you know I’d really, if I do it I’d want to do it properly and be good at it and feel the music and do it.

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But I can’t bear it, people say, ‘Oh come on, let’s have a bop’. Well anyone says that word to me, I can’t bear that word and it would put me off them. ‘Cos it is a sort of middle class – bop, it means it’s like, ‘cos it’s a thing of no importance, you know it’s not like a proper job is it, dancing, to anyone, like. It’s that kind of thing. It’s like that guy who said to Peter Sellers years ago, you know he was on the radio doing The Goons and that and being in a bit of films and the bloke said, ‘Well yes, but what’s your proper job?’. It’s that kind of thing.

You thought ‘bopping’ was too sort of common?

The word annoys me, no. It’s a middle class, it’s a word you sort of, you could come out, tumbled out the pub in Sevenoaks and all get in the Range Rover and let’s go and have a bop round Freddy’s house. I mean you know, it’s a serious thing, it’s not to be taken… it’s not serious, but in a funny way it’s kind of, you know, it’s taking it too lightly.

That’s kind of indicative of how you’ve approached other things isn’t it, in a way?

Mm, mm.

You know, that something that’s too sort of middle class or too acceptable is…

Yes. You know, I can start things – most the things that I ever begin always reach the lowest common… you know, in the end they’re always mass. Some reason, loads of things have all become mass, but I’ve never sort of, something stops me sort of doing it properly, I don’t know what it is.

Is there a sort of…

It’s very strange really.

Is there some sort of rebellion going on inside you, you know?

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I think there must be, yeah. Something isn’t it, there’s something going on. There’s definitely something going on.

Like trying to shoot yourself in the foot whatever you…[laughs]

There’s definitely something going on, definitely something’s been going on for years, [laughs], years. You know, when it’s rock ‘n’ roll I’d like trad jazz, when it’s trad jazz I had to be, I’d do modernism. When it’s modernism I can’t just be listening to modern jazz, I would have to own like west coast of Jay, Kai Winding, Jay Johnson music. I mean they’ve all got to be out on the furthest edge, you know. I mean I used to, I’m trying to think. I used to like things like, you know I used to buy records like Music Concrete and things, like John Cage or Terry Riley and all that, you know. And then it kind of like, even when it was like all that kind of rock music or something, you know what I mean, my favourite group was the Velvet Underground. D’you know what I mean? New York. That thing, it’s something about it, it’s, you know. It’s not Jethro Tull, you know what I mean? It’s funny isn’t it? [laughs] Song… certain things. And I suppose it’s a kind of reaction against yeah, I always had to be trying, trying I suppose, trying to prove oneself perhaps it is or something, I don’t know.

But, at the same time not be successful?

In a way, I suppose. Well, you know, comes and flows doesn’t it. Ruin it if it’s successful, ruin it, that’s what you do. You know, that’s how it happens isn’t it? Well sixties, seventies theme really, sixties. Great big enormous stores in Kensington; me and Barbara Hulanicki, Biba and… all had to be ruined didn’t it? It all had to be, implode, had to blow it, you know. Couldn’t be furthered and you know, all had to be fucking cut off and stopped. [laughs] Now people – I think there’s a time, maybe now people they’re very conscious of you know, things. I don’t think there’s a licence to do that. Of course it’s harder for people. You know, you could rent a shop for twelve quid and paint it all up and do it, and do what you want in there and that, you know.

What, d’you mean there was a sort of freedom to it, you could…

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Slightly easier, it was all new wasn’t it really, you know. It was all new, now it’s all been absorbed. So much has been absorbed.

It’s become a sort of a career route isn’t it?

You know, they say, ‘What would you think the next thing is Tommy?’ I said, ‘Well, you’re thinking in terms of reality’, I said, ‘it might be a very abstract thing is the next thing. It might be nothing to do with like… it might be something abstract that you can’t, it’s hard to conceive at the moment’. It might not be just sort of what you wear or something, it might be whole theme that you know, all relates to each other that is something, you know. I can’t formulate it in my mind, but it’s a kind of abstract thing. [laughs] In a funny way. People haven’t really come to the – it’s there and it’s happening, but they haven’t formed it yet. You know, that’s what it is. Or sometimes you take one little – it’s like design you know, I suddenly, somebody was talking to me about shops the other day and I suddenly had a vision, I think well, you know I mean, it kind of, not a skinhead thing but like, you know, I was talking about it and he’d want, you know they said we’ll decorate, we’ll do this as our posters from like the Sex Pistols and I said, no, no, no, none of that. It’s totally fucking plain, it’s totally nothing. There’s one island, steel, like the school dinners long steel hi-tech table with the things on. But not meaning in an architectural way, but just plainness, total plainness and one, and you just shape three, a t- shirt’s a shape, the sort of shorty raincoat is a shape and somehow it’s built on that level – very, very… And then, you know, then I said well then there’s no, you make sure there’s no publicity, no photographs. Make it hard to get in, difficult, real sort of funny you know, that people feel uncomfortable slightly and then if you can sustain it, you’ve got a bit of money that you haven’t got to go skint in three… and you could run it for a year, you’d be very successful and be very famous. [makes knocking sound] Bang! D’you know what I mean? But what it is, it’ll only last for a certain time, so then you can develop it if you want to or whatever. But it’s certainly that feeling, it’s not, get the… round, you know, it’s not that. Get away from that.

It’s like the reverse of normal PR and all that.

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Totally. The only thing would be about money, ‘cos you’d have to be, you’d have to suffer for a year. But if you can suffer for a year, say no, no thanks… no, you know, who are you? No, can’t come in. Very difficult, very awkward, very forbidding. Strange music, no music. Maybe somebody puts a record on now and again. Very few, but good, you know, good shape things. A short coat, tight pair of trousers, big pair of special – wonderful big thick, thick soled American kind of, those American jungle beautiful supple leather hide boots, pair of them there, pair of them in say olive green, pair of them in oxblood red, just on a very plain… there, there, bomp, bump, very quiet, okay. This very simple bit of table. No visual, no guidance to give you a thing, no guidance, just shapes, only shapes and slight bit of colour. D’you know what I mean? And then, then a very plain theme, maybe one image outside. I don’t know what. Good, you know, one name, one image. I’m only talking very abstract here, I’m only you know, I mean you have to think…

[End of Track 7]

[Track 8]

…more about it to do it, but that’s how I feel. If I was a thirty year old bloke with the energy to do it and a bit of money, that’s what I’d do. No magazines, no stylists, no fuck all. No stylists – styling what? For what? Oh well I thought we’d like to borrow two things for the… No, you can’t borrow anything. It’s the only stock I’ve got so it can’t be borrowed, nothing borrowed. I’ll take photos – you can’t take a photograph. You know, when the person walks out buying it, you can take a photograph in the street. Anti what goes on. It might be a long time, you might do it [whipping sound] and that and it wouldn’t be right, it might be rather three years’ [whipping sound] time, but that’s the future not the [whipping sound]… it’s gotta be reversal. It’s the only, when it’s a reversal. When everyone’s in big hippy coat and long hair and that and I come along and I do it like the baseball, I do it like a sports theme when I have the hair shorn, very short hair, muddy colours, hippy colours, bright red t-shirt with a big green fucking star, it’s a reversal. People are into sort of, you know like, I dunno, sport, something than what’s gone before. It’s a reversal. It’s the only way to make an… the only way you can make an impact isn’t it? And if you want to get something off you’ve got to make an impact. Or else you’ve

Tommy Roberts Page 88 C1046/12 Track 8 got to be very wealthy and buy an existing brand, to buy into. Or, do something nice that you sell on e-Bay, very nice and gradually you build it that way like a normal process. But my way, that’s the way I would do it if I was younger and you know, and had the money to sustain it for a certain period of time. Where you did it would be quite important. D’you know what I mean? Okay, so you maybe do it at Spitalfields or something, you know, whatever. Could be in a house. It could be a house, a house would be quite nice, with a front door and everything. It’d be quite nice to do it in that sort of – with a nice big room in a bay, you know what I mean, you know and everything. You know, and if they want coffee, well they can go round the coffee shop round the corner, we’re not, you know we’re not into… Tough, strong, very strong with the image, very unadorned. No periphery, no chatting, no nothing. And then you have the right person to work in there. You’ve gotta handpick the right person, know what I mean? It might be someone, not in tattoos and earrings, it might be someone in a kind of funny suit or something and a white shirt and a tie and polished, you know, someone from, taken from some area where he’s not affected with it all and plumped there. [coughs] D’you know what I mean? You know, so that person, even that’s gotta be a statement, who’s serving the bit of clothes, it’s gotta be a strong statement. So it’s not the bit of clothing, it’s that statement becomes, this is fucking fab here, I love this shop, they’ll say. You know what I mean? Say it’s just really something, it’s really good, you know. You must buy something from there, you know.

But isn’t it about selling, for you?

Yeah, but I suppose it’s a way of selling isn’t it? But, you know I’ve become, you know I can become passionate about something like that. It’s a new concept. Somehow rethink things.

But it seems to be more about the ideas and the presentation and…

Yes.

… the sort of philosophy almost…

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Yes.

… rather than you know…

Yes.

…getting the teenagers in, et cetera.

Yes, yes, definitely, yes. Definitely. And of course nowadays it’s not, it’s hard to do, you know, it’s not the time for that is it, you know. So you sort of try and do something, you know. But anyway, if I was doing sort of selling, I would try to do something like that. I mean it’s very vague, but I was just trying to formulate my mind, something like that to do. But I’m a bit too old, you’d need a bit of a younger input ‘cos it’d need some other strand with it all. But it would definitely, I could get inspired with that. That inspires me. What else can fucking inspire you, what else? Nothing else is. Nothing else is. [laughs] I suppose I’m selfish really. [laughs] Anyway, shall we wrap it up now…

Yeah.

… and have another corrupter? [laughs]

Cheers.

Alright?

Thanks.

Okay.

[End of Track 8]

[Track 9]

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So it’s nineteenth of August, 2005, interview with Tommy Roberts. And how are you feeling today?

Alright Anna, yes, not too bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not too bad, not too bad.

Looking forward to talking a bit more or…?

Yes fine, yeah, yeah, let’s get… yeah, yeah, fine.

Okay. Amongst many things last time you mentioned you moved to a house in Blackheath Rise.

Yes.

And you talked a little bit about the house, you said there was a ghost…

That was 1949 we moved there, with the ghost. Yes. Well I got, I just got used to the ghost in the end. My parents, I mean my parents used to go out for a drink in the evening and occasionally I was there on my own. But there was a bit of wailing and banging of doors and that kind of thing and I just kind of got to learn to live with it really, and it didn’t really worry me. Then we had lodgers later on and then one of them went screaming out the door ‘cos he saw an apparition come through, standing at the end of his bed, Mr Said the chemist. So there was a few incidents like that, whatever.

I don’t think I really asked last time, but can you sort of visualise the house if you were going, you know, into it – what would you see?

Yes, yes it was a nice house. It was a, I presume it was a sort of, I would presume it was probably built in about the 1870s, looking back. It was a sort of semi-detached house and it was nice proportions. It wasn’t too tall and it wasn’t… you went into quite a wide door, had a – what do they call it, overhanging the door, you know, the - porch. It had a sort of, no sides, just a sort of top layer, a nice sort of porch and then you went in the door and there was a staircase to the left, it went up to the second floor and then you, there was a big

Tommy Roberts Page 91 C1046/12 Track 9 room to the right and you carried on and there was a lovely, another big room with lovely French doors into a garden. And then you went to the right and down into, there was a scullery and a pantry and a kitchen. And upstairs was one, about three or four bedrooms and the bathroom, kind of like 1920s bathroom and lavatory at the end of the corridor. Quite nice oak wide staircase. Then my father, I said I think earlier, used to go to these auction things. So he bought a sort of like oak refectory table – not that he was really into antiques really, and it’s funny, but he bought an oak refectory table that was at the base of these stairs and sort of Knoll sofa, a large Knoll sofa and it was cold because it didn’t have central heating then. In fact I can remember actually – we had a television very early on and I can remember watching television, everyone in their overcoat because you know, we didn’t have central heating. And then we used to sort of use the kitchen a lot and there was a big sort of a range there and that was always a coke filled range, and a kitchen and kind of, it was a nice house really. And friends used to come round and it was just at the base of the hill as you go up to Blackheath. And course, it was a three minute walk, you was on Blackheath and as a child you could play there, you know, knights in shining armour or cowboys and Indians or whatever and it was just very nice. Nice childhood really. And then we moved to the other side of Blackheath in 1955.

Before we get there though. That house, you mentioned the kitchen – can you describe the kitchen a little bit more?

I’m trying to, Anna that’s… yeah, it kind of – there was a kitchen, you know, would have had a kind of, would have had a – not a kind of [laughs] but a proper – it would have had a proper sort of 1940s, I think gas, it was gas stove and large sink and draining board and that was the kitchen. And then you walked through the kitchen to another door and that’s where the range was, like an old-fashioned metal, iron range. But there, I think there was a, was there a chair there? I think we used to sit at a kind of table in there and have a meal, really. Must have been quite big.

So that’s where you had your family sort of meals?

That’s where we had it, yes, yes, yes.

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Did you sit down together as a family?

I think we did. My father used to come, he didn’t work very far away and he used to come home for lunch. I mean I think we’d – my mother was quite a good cook. You know, we had like, I can remember like very early things, we used to have cauliflower au gratin and pasta and things, which I thought was kind of quite, other children’s… didn’t know what they were eating if they came round for supper. She was quite a good cook.

Where did she learn those dishes?

Probably cookery books and perhaps watching Philip Harben on the television, I don’t know. But she was quite, she was a good cook, mm.

And is that how…

My grandmother was quite a good cook on my… my father’s mother never cooked anything in her whole life. But of course his father was a chef, but she couldn’t cook anything, was a ghastly cook. But my mother’s mother was quite a good cook.

Could your father cook?

No, no. I can’t ever remember him cooking, no. No, he never cooked. Either my mother and after that he probably had a housekeeper and – ooh he did occasionally, I say that, he would do a few things. He did cook, yes he did. Stews and – later on when he was, you know, on his own. No, he did cook a little bit. I wouldn’t say he was kind of cordon bleu cook, but he could sort of cook enough to keep himself. He wouldn’t believe in going out to restaurants four times a week or anything.

So, but he wouldn’t cook for the family?

No. No, no, no, no nothing like that, no. Well I think he was working and he’d come home and it was different, it was you know, so my mother cooked. She’d have a cleaner come in twice a week ‘cos it was quite a big house. Help her.

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Would your parents, what would they have done in the evenings once your father came home from work?

My mother used to read quite a lot and she… Boots lending library and she was quite a reader. I think she would, you know I mean, used to do sewing and things like that, as I say some television. And then about twice a week they would go off and have a, go out for you know, they were quite social and they used to belong to things like the Forest Hill Lawn Tennis Club and they’d go there I think once a week, and sometimes people would come back. Pubs, my father used to go to a pub, I don’t think my mother so much. But she would go with him for a drink occasionally, but he was more you know, he’d like to go to a pub and have a chat and things.

And who would have been his friends at the pub?

Well I think he went through a stage of like, you know, joining the Masons and all that business I think went on for a while. But he was a funny man, he got fed up with that and I suppose – he always had friends. I’m trying to think who his friends were. We had an uncle who was a friend of his who used to come quite a bit. There was a builder. Perhaps like… anyone, he was very good like that, he had no, you know, he’d just fit into any company. If it was whatever, whoever the level, he would fit in. I mean a bit chameleon like that, he was very good, he was a very strange man really. He always sort of, kind of he was clever and knowledgeable but he would subjugate it really to sort of fit into what the company was. Very odd really.

Would you say, did you sort of pick up anything from his way of being?

Well he was always quite into clothes, smart and yeah, business things and maybe interested in kind of doing, I suppose you thought oh, like I’d like to run a business. I had that kind of background really. And very honest, kind of strange man. I wouldn’t say, I mean he would you know, business is business and you’re not stupid, but I mean I did remember getting, he caught me stealing a half a crown piece out of his pocket once. Well it must have gone on for, I must have done it two or three times and suddenly you know,

Tommy Roberts Page 94 C1046/12 Track 9 he let me do it and then boom, that was it. And it was such a traumatic experience I never did it ever again. It cured me.

Can you tell us what happened?

Well I think they noticed that I was stealing, like five shillings and two and six. And course, you start off with two and six, you end up stealing seven and six. And my mother I think noticed it, so I think I must have stole five shillings one day and she said, ‘Have you got two two and sixpenny pieces on you?’ I said, ‘Yes’. She said, ‘You just took it out your father’s jacket’. And I think there was a, I think I got a bit of a clout and hit and – not over… my father was never like that, I never really experienced anything. It was only traumatic because he was very, you know, there was no sort of, he wasn’t like a disciplinarian one iota really. It was a shocking thing that I felt so shameful that I never did that again. And he was funny with things like that, sort of animals or birds and I think I had an airgun and I went out in the back garden one day and I shot this airgun and shot a dicky bird. [laughs] A bird off the tree. He went absolutely mad, you know, how can you kill a living thing like that, what’s it ever done to you, it was a terrible thing, you must never ever, you know. He was very funny like that, he didn’t believe in killing animals and things, you know.

So it was about the fact that you’d killed a bird, rather than the fact that you’d used the gun?

I think it was, yeah. It was only, it was an airgun, but killing the bird upset him. He liked birds and he was funny, if a bird was damaged, he’d find it, he’d give it sort of drops of milk and rear it and let it go back into the wild. Things like that, mm.

So, was he quite kind in the rest of his life, would you say?

Very, he could be very selfish. Kind to people, he was kind. And generous, nice man. But he could be a little bit, you wouldn’t – I remember once when I was slightly older like a teenager, he always had nice clothes, he had a lovely pair of Italian shoes. And I thought, I wore them once and he went absolutely… don’t ever touch my clothes, you’ve ruined my

Tommy Roberts Page 95 C1046/12 Track 9 shoes, made ‘em too wide, you’ve spoilt them. Don’t ever… you know, he went… didn’t like anything like that, see, he was funny. And yeah, he was a bit, a strange character.

Does that mean he was very sort of careful of his own appearance?

Yes. Not overly so, he wasn’t sort of in the bathroom sort of trimming a beard for three and a half hours or anything. I mean he didn’t have anything like that, no. Yeah, he’d have a wash and that, but he wasn’t in for potions and scents and stuff, you know, wasn’t a man for that kind of thing, no. I don’t think he would have liked it overly done. He was a bit funny like that. But then you couldn’t wear like no shoes, he’d say, don’t keep walking round this house in stockinged feet and things like that, you know.

So he liked to keep…

He was, yes.

…keep things sort of nice, you know?

A bit that, yeah, that was his generation, you know. The garden couldn’t, you know he was quite interested in gardening, but I don’t think he could have had an irregular shaped bed of flowers in the middle of the lawn, it would have been, the symmetry would have worried him, you know. It would have to be kind of, you know, he didn’t like ornaments and things like that. It all had to be tidied and cleaned and a bit obsessive about no mess. And course if you left a comic, he’d, little bit kind of a bit cruel like that. If you left a comic you liked on the side, he’d make sure it’s put in the dustbin and thing, ripped up and put in the dustbin. He’d say we’ll keep it all tidy, things like that. Or if you had a toy he might tread on it if it’s in the middle of the floor. He’d say it was interfering with where he’s walking about the home.

What toys did you have?

Well I used to like toy soldiers and I used to have a big collection of them, well fairly good collection. And I used to paint them and not so much I wanted to bash them up or fight, I

Tommy Roberts Page 96 C1046/12 Track 9 just wanted to lay them out then get on the floor, lay down and see ‘em from the perspective of the soldiers, you know, like a diorama, a scene. Mm, I liked that. And I used to do that in the garden. Use your imagination and you think well I’ll play at armies and over the – we had a bit of a rockery, so they would all hide in the rockery. You know, you’d have a game with the soldiers. Toys.

What would your father…

In fact I liked toys, I think I had soldiers up to I was about seventeen or eighteen I think. I liked toys.

I’ll come back to that then, I think. One thing, what did your father wear to work?

A suit. Always a sort of blue suit, two-piece suit. Not over the top, clothing, but kind of quite nicely dressed. He’d have a suit made and things like that. And earlier on he’d have an overcoat. In fact he had a bowler hat, although I never saw him wear it, he had a bowler hat. I suppose for occasional visits to a, if he was doing some business in the City or – you know, or not City but he was going on a selling trip, he might take a bowler hat. Saw it in the back of the car, shelf or in the back seat, but I’ve never actually ever, ever seen one on his head.

So you said that your parents were quite social – would they have had dinner parties?

We didn’t in those days. You didn’t have dinner parties. I mean, you didn’t have dinner parties, you had people come round for a drink in the evening and things. And there would be two or three people, they might have gone to the local, where they met in the pub or the social club and brought a few people back for a drink. All different types.

And would you have been sort of allowed to be there? You weren’t really allowed to be there, but you might be up the top of the stairs looking. You know, as a young child you wouldn’t, no. I mean I suppose it was always sort of early I suppose. People used to come back at ten thirty at night, a few people and I suppose they stayed till twelve o’clock or whatever, which was very late in those days.

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And where would they have come to sit?

Oh they would have gone into the, I suppose you would call it a lounge, which is a horrible word, but sitting room really, which was quite a big – two sofas and chairs, we had some Victorian chairs and I can sort of picture them sitting there having a gin and tonic or whatever, you know.

Was that what they would have drunk?

Well crates of beer really. It was more a – father didn’t, he drank beer, but he wasn’t a beer person, he had whisky and soda and things.

Did they have a place where they kept the drinks?

Yes, they had a drinks cabinet. Yeah, they had a drinks cabinet. You know, there wasn’t anyone there who was a dipsomaniac, I mean you didn’t have to be under lock and key or anything, you know, but they had a drinks cabinet.

Did they get a little bit rowdy?

No. They might have, you know, there might be a dance. I’m trying to think what it was. A little bit merry I suppose, yeah. I’m trying to think of the music, we didn’t have pianos. Other people had pianos, upright pianos in their homes, but we didn’t have that. My father wasn’t really musical, you know, but you know, we had a record player but that was a little bit later on. I don’t think over rowdy you know, there wasn’t windows being smashed and people screaming and hooting. There probably was a bit, but I can’t remember it. Faces being slapped and things like that. I can’t remember that, no.

If you ever…

My mother used to get a little bit funny if she’d had a drink, gins and tonics. A little bit.

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But what does ‘funny’ mean?

Well funny means, yeah well that’s… a bit, not nasty. Could be a little bit cutting.

To your father?

To my father. To me even.

And what were the sort of cutting remarks?

Could be a bit, as I say, I think I mentioned before – the hospital must have mixed up the babies and that kind of thing. I think – ‘cos she was worried about my weight, I was overweight as a child. And that would annoy her, ‘cos she was smart and it would just annoy her really, occasionally. And she could get a little bit, if she’d had, yeah, had a drink, she could turn on someone a bit.

Did you do anything to spark her remarks?

Well, Anna I can’t really think. It couldn’t have been very often. She could be annoyed, get annoyed with things. I don’t quite know what now, but friends coming round too much and things like that, she didn’t like too much of that. We had dogs as well, we had two bulldogs, which my mother used to keep, these dogs. Just something I thought of. All in all, it was quite a nice time really. I mean they were a proper family, and holidays. My father was doing quite well in business. It seemed to be a nice period really, there, at Blackheath Rise.

If you had have been sort of looking down from your…

Yeah.

…landing or whatever and heard the guests – d’you know what sort of conversation would have been going on between your parents and them?

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No. Be like – my father was quite funny. He was very funny, my father, so there’d be people, there’d always be, usually laughter. But I can remember you know like my cousin, it was a sort of family thing, perhaps it was Christmas or something and my uncle, my mother’s younger brother used to come and do the bar and you know, the sideboard would be all the drinks on it and he would do the bar and they’d have a bar going. And, trying to think. I think a little bit risqué, jokes and things like that, I think he’d be, they weren’t very you know, straight-laced like that, I think there’d be a bit of risqué banter going on.

Would they ever have talked about things that they’d seen on the television?

My father didn’t really like, as I say, he didn’t go television or theatres, he couldn’t really, he wasn’t interested. He liked people, company, going out. He didn’t like… he’d watch the news. My mother would occasionally watch a, anything like a play she would watch. Always watched, Sunday afternoon at four o’clock was Liberace, always watched that of course. But there was a couple of variety shows, would watch that. I mean I don’t think they would have sat through three hours of opera or anything like that. Some sport, cup final would be watched. Certain sporting events, my father would watch that.

Would they have talked about what was in the news?

I can’t think he would particularly… he was a Conservative, but that sort of man was. No, I can’t think of him as being a ranter and raver about, this is wrong and disgraceful and they shouldn’t be doing that. He was kind of, you know, he was kind of in a funny way, he’d say well, they might have a reason for being like that, you know. Quite kind of like that. Kind of quite philosophical and generous natured really in that sort of way. He would make excuse for people’s bad behaviour in a way. Unless it affected him particularly. I can’t think of often, I don’t think he, he was careful to avoid, he wouldn’t get in them kind of situations, yeah. Maybe a business, a business thing or it might be a big delivery to some big company and they’d said it was wrong and he’d be upset over that. But then he’d say, oh well, we’ll have to sell it to someone else. Serious, things, I mean later on, we’re talking about later on, I might have gone and scraped the, bashed the car or borrowed the car and scraped it. And he’d come on, he’d say, oh well, that’s what it

Tommy Roberts Page 100 C1046/12 Track 9 is, you know. Wouldn’t be a great big enormous hooting and hollering. My father was quite philosophical about that.

But, basically Conservative?

Yeah, but then I think you know, that’s how it was in those days wasn’t it? He wasn’t ever on what they called the panel of you know, there was like, used to be the local government would have a panel. His partner was more Conservative. And how it worked was, somebody said well they needed like a wardrobe or new boots or something and there’d be a Conservative, a Labour and a… there’d be the Trade Unionist who’d say he should have boots and the local businessman who say he shouldn’t and then there’d be individuals, a Liberal and they’d work… But somehow it isn’t fair, because in a funny way, it sort of worked. It kind of worked. Now of course it’s not, you can’t do that, but it was more simple.

So who was his partner?

Mr Morgan who, he had a partner who was kind of – I never really, ‘cos I was never mixed, business and families didn’t mix you see. I met Mr Morgan, very nice, be a friend to me, whatever, but I think I did as a child. My mother was ill, my mother had a serious illness and I had to go and stay, and I think I went and stayed with Mr Morgan and his first wife and I got very, very – I think I was there a week and my, and I think I must have got, I don’t know whether or not they couldn’t cope or whatever, and my grandmother took over and so that was a – my father, you know, he couldn’t have coped with me. Not that I was unruly or anything, but his brain, he wasn’t very good with things like families and that, you know.

So what was wrong with your mother?

Oh she had a – I can’t remember what it was called now – a glandular thing and they used to slit your throat and do a sort of operation in those days. And she had this thing – I forget what it was called. It was always notable ‘cos you had slightly bulging eyes, yeah. And she had this like, thing. And that was, I always felt guilty ‘cos she’d taken me to see

Tommy Roberts Page 101 C1046/12 Track 9 the doctor about dieting or something, she took me and the doctor was this very tall, very thin asthmatic woman, with asthma and it was a foggy London, foggy day and she was coughing and we went in, she said, ‘Well it’s not him that needs the treatment, it’s you my dear, you’re the one that’s not well’. And I felt terrible guilt over that, you know. [laughs]

That’s a shame. How old were you then?

Eight I suppose. Yeah, I remember that.

But she got better and…

She got better.

So what was it like, can you remember at all staying with Mr Morgan?

I can’t really, I mean I, no, there’s nothing really you know, I mean very… I actually can’t. Totally can’t. I think they used to live in a flat at the time. Probably a rented flat, like we rented the house, where we rented. I think it was quite expensive for the time. I think it was four guineas a week. And Mr Gobbett was the man who – it sounds Victorian, it is, it was Victorian. As I said to you before, the man next door had been retired from the Royal Observatory and been a, astronomer under Queen Victoria. It was very, it was Victorian. And Mr Gobbett, he was a great sort of wealthy, sort of mogul kind of man who – well, a Dickens’ character really. Great big long black overcoat and I think he’d owned tugs on the River Thames. He’d been a bit, I think you know, he used to own tugs and he was a business on, lighterman business on the Thames. And he obviously had property all round there. He’d obviously bought it in the war for tuppence halfpenny, I don’t know, but he owned property. He used to go round and collect the rents. And he’d always stay, ‘cos I think he was a bit of a, he liked chatting to my mother because she was young and nice looking and Mr Gobbett’d come nattering and everything. And he’d stay and he was a kind of – trying to think – kind of…

[End of Track 9]

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[Track 10]

…you know, interesting kind of character really. But he looked me up and down, he said, ‘What’s this boy doing?’ Just like he was something out of Dickens. And he said, ‘Is this boy, boy goes to school does he? Where’s he go?’ There was always a – Mr Gobbett coming was always a little bit, my father was [laughing] always a bit deferential. I don’t know why, had no need to be, but, ‘Mr Gobbett’s coming’. Mr Gobbett come straight in and sit at the kitchen table and I think he’d, I don’t know whether he’d have a whisky and malt or something and sit there for about half an hour, an hour, talking and I always remember funny things. He’d say things like, the housekeeper, now this housekeeper, I’m, I got this housekeeper and she, somehow I’m gonna marry this housekeeper but I don’t quite know how it’s all come about. But anyway, he said well I’ll have to change my ways ‘cos she said that she can’t marry me if I go to the lavatory and leave the door open. Things like that, really funny things, as a child. But it was, sort of then it was, although it was like 1950, he was even rooted in the nineteenth century in a funny way. And I think he had a big black sort of pre-war car, Mr Gobbett. Like a, probably had an Austin 12, I don’t know, and off he’d go I suppose down to the cheaper rents down at Deptford. I suppose he owned rows of those little terraced houses with people paying twelve and sixpence a week rent or something, I don’t know. A wealthy miser, you’d describe him as really.

And why…

A miser, you know, the same old coat, same old Homburg hat.

But he was the astronomer?

No. He was the landlord.

Oh, I thought so.

He was nothing to do with the astronomer, no. That terrace of houses had quite interesting – not terrace – but there was a group of two and a group of two, and we lived in one and to

Tommy Roberts Page 103 C1046/12 Track 10 the left of it lived Mr Edney who’d been, worked for the Greenwich Maritime, you know, the astronomer. Greenwich – what do they call it? You know what I mean, don’t you? The other side were two – I think I described this on the last tape didn’t I? The two elderly sisters who lived next door, who’d been concert pianists and things. And the brother who killed hisself? I told you all that. It was all in the same, that was in Blackheath Rise. And the fourth house was a, was a relation of the two ladies, a most peculiar man. Whether in life things hadn’t gone wrong, but obviously, he’d walk up the road with his nose poking skyward, as if everything was you know, as if everything was dreadfully common around him. And he’d walk along like that with a stick and a bow tie and never say a word to anyone ever. But I can’t think of any more right now. As I said, very nice environment, up the road, bicycle, you could take your bike, go up to the heath, have a game, play all over Blackheath, Greenwich Park. Opposite was a big – I suppose you could call it a bombsite, but it wasn’t, it was a kind of, it was a cottage hospital there, St John’s cottage hospital, ‘cos even in London, the suburbs of London have cottage hospitals in those days. And we used to play over there, we’d call it the jungle, so that was opposite, so it was nice for a child. Imagination could run rife and games and whatever. You could be Attila the Hun, you could be an Indian, a cowboy, a knight in shining ar… you know, it was very good. You’d see a film, you might see a film and you know, I can’t remember, The Black Sword of Falmouth or one of these sort of films and course you’d come, you’d make a sword out of wood and make you know, and dress up and off you’d be, you’d be a knight and have games. They was very innocent. Had a friend up the road who was not quite so innocent, who got, who was a little bit of a young thief. But most boys are, pinch things as kids. And he’d pinch things and he got caught and I was a bit friends with him. And then, funny, I can always remember an extraordinary situation. The milkman was a horse and cart in those days and it was quite a steep hill and the horse and cart come careering round the hill with the milkman and all these ten shilling, there were ten shilling notes come flying through the air. And there were the ten shilling notes, about seven of them, and they all ended up in the gutter and he went careering down the hill and this other boy picked them all up, which was an enormous sum of money and it sort of frightened me. But he said, ‘I’m gonna bury them over the heath’. [laughs] And I think he used to go and take, I think it lasted him about a year, this taking the ten shilling note… oh I think he got caught because he wanted to change, they said, where did you get a ten shilling note and it all

Tommy Roberts Page 104 C1046/12 Track 10 come… but I wasn’t involved, so I remember, you know, things like that would stick in your mind.

But you wouldn’t have done anything like that?

I suppose if I saw a ten shilling note in the gutter, I’d put it in my pocket, yes. I’m opportunistic like that, but I certainly – but he come flying round the corner, he must have been, his money thing had opened, his wallet or satchel, and they come flying through the air and ended up in the gutter. So, I certainly didn’t rush down the road chasing him and I probably did enjoy the fruits of it ‘cos I suppose I got bought ice-creams and things out of the ten shillings, you know. But, don’t know why I mentioned it really. It’s a silly thing.

Back to Mr Gobbett – did he speak to you?

I don’t think he was one for speaking to children on the same level, but no, he’d address you as a third party. You know, ‘This boy’. ‘What does, this boy, has he been going to school, this boy?’ It was a kind of, ‘What does this boy do at…’ Talking to my mother, through my mother to me, so you never sort of – I think he might have, I think on birthday he might have left me a shilling. He said, ‘Now this boy, you take this Mrs Roberts, this is for Ma…’ - I think he actually called all first name, Marie. I can’t remember if he called her first name or not. Maybe he called her first name. I think I got a shilling at birthday or something, which was quite extraordinary because he was very famously a mean man. I know he didn’t have any heating and lighting in the house, but he must have been, even in those days, he must have been a very, very wealthy man. But I think all day long he just came round with a great big bag collecting these rents I suppose, I don’t know.

And what did you make of him and how he made money when you were small?

Yeah. Well it must have made some impression, I think it was this great, this quite tall man in this long black overcoat, like a shape really in a way. And of course, Mr Gobbett’s coming, he was always spoken of, now Mr Gobbett’s coming tonight, see. So I suppose in your head he can become an important person. I think my father was in trepidation, you

Tommy Roberts Page 105 C1046/12 Track 10 know, kind of respected him and he was always a bit humbled in front of Mr Gobbett, I don’t know why. But, no need of it, but like that.

Did they always manage to pay the rent?

Oh yes, yes, yeah. Oh yeah. We never went through those kind of, those sort of things. There was always plenty for the rent, yeah. I don’t know, not that I heard, I never heard of any problem with it. But it was quite a substantial sum. Maybe it was three guineas, or four. It wasn’t fifteen and sixpence. But it was a nice house.

Did you have your own bedroom in that house?

Oh yes, I had my own bedroom. I remember going and getting, being young and going and getting some nice sort of fifties furniture, like children’s, on those little spiky legs with balls on the end, little piece of furniture. Whole bedroom suite, single bed and a sort of wardrobe and a little chest of drawers and a side thing to put a lamp on, I remember. That was a big thing, I thought ooh, went and got, I had my own little bedroom suite which I thought was - might have had, bought it at Cheeseman’s in Lewisham or wherever it was bought and I thought that was very good, that. Modern bedroom suite.

Would you have had a hand in choosing what was in it?

I don’t think I’d have had a hand in it, but I was very pleased with the result. It was very modern and everything.

What was your view from the window?

My bedroom overlooked the back garden and there was a sort of sloping roof beneath it, which was the extension of the kitchen. So as I would go out the bedroom, crawl – not crawl – but go down the sloping roof and jump down in the back garden that way. No- one’d see me, but that’s how I’d go in the back garden there, and so that was the view. The front of course was just a sort of, I suppose, a suburban street with these kind of quite nice houses. Quiet, ‘cos no cars then. My father had a car. That’d be parked outside and

Tommy Roberts Page 106 C1046/12 Track 10 it was probably the only car. There was another car, there was a couple of doctors lived up the road, they had a car. That was the only cars you ever saw of course.

Would you have decorated your room at all?

I wouldn’t, no. I suppose it was someone who come and painted the room I would imagine, I can’t remember. Probably my grandfather, probably. [interruption – break in recording]

So yes, your bedroom. How was it sort of decorated?

I can’t think of anything else. I can’t think of anything, I can’t think of any colours or what’s in there, I really can’t think. That’s as far as I can think really, with it. I’m trying to think. Went down a bit of a corridor to my bedroom. Bit isolated, funnily enough. God. You had this furniture in there, I suppose you would have had some toys and bits and books and bits and pieces. I didn’t like living there, didn’t become a very important part for me because I can’t remember any of it, so I must have, you know I must have just slept there really. Some people, their bedroom, ‘cos they spend long time, hours there and I suppose I never did, no. I can’t remember it.

So if you weren’t in your…

I’m getting mixed up with two bedrooms now. No, the other… I think the other house had this other furniture. Don’t think I had it there, I think it was a bit more old-fashioned furniture. If they’d rented the house they probably would have had these, I think it had things we had from these auctions, but I don’t think he would have typically invested in a lot of furniture there. Bergère suite I can remember, that was probably the new house, I can’t remember anyway. That’s all I can remember.

So you were there until the age of thirteen?

.Mm.

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And can you sort of talk about how, the contact you had with your parents, how it sort of changed from being a small boy to being say thirteen.

Well I was kind of treated as a bit of an adult really. I mean when I was thirteen I wore long, you know, long trousers and my father caught me smoking and he said, oh well, smoking. And I could stay up, and I stayed up till about ten, ten thirty at night. Suddenly it changed, at thirteen. And I’d always been up quite late. It was never that thing of going to bed at seven, I can’t… you know, it was always kind of quite liberal like that really. Then my mother had a clampdown. But it would come as a shock ‘cos it’d be sudden clampdown on and I could never really reason for it. Something would go in the head and it would all – no eating. I went in like the scullery, that was all locked away, all food was locked away. Usually when we come back on a holiday, there’d be this enormous – it’d be a frightening experience because there’d be an enormous lot of puritanical kind of thing. Too much enjoyment’s gone on, no food, no outings, no laughing regime, as if we had to purge ourself of enjoyment. [laughing] And that used to go on for about – I didn’t like that, that was horrible.

Would your mother have gone on a diet or anything like that herself?

No, she was always quite thin. I mean you never needed her to. My father was always thin. And I kind of, I suppose I stuck out a little bit and I think it would ‘em a bit, mm.

So, this sort of purging was directed at you, rather than the family?

All of them really, ‘cos I think she thought we were in hotels having meals and this kind of thing and it had to be cleaned out, go out the system. So very plain fare and very little… and no luxuries and that’s what it was. Well that usually lasted for about two weeks and then it’d die off.

So if you stayed up quite late, were you sort of in the same room as your parents – were you spending quite a lot of time with them?

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Yes. But then, as I say, they used to go out and then I’d have the TV on my own and then I’d sort of go to bed myself about ten o’clock or whatever. I suppose I was about twelve or you know, eleven. I wouldn’t say they would leave me overnight or anything, they wouldn’t do that, but they felt that they could go out and – you know, I can’t ever remember babysitters or anything, even as a small… I just can’t remember that, no. I never had anything like that. On my own a bit, of course, ‘cos there’s no brothers and sisters. Lots of friends.

How did you feel about not having siblings?

Quite pleased in a way, aren’t you, ‘cos all children are quite selfish and so you think you get more for yourself I suppose, I don’t know. I mean all children are like that. No, I never really, I’ve never really, it’s never entered further than to sort of think about it in a funny way. Just that’s how it was. Most friends always had brothers and sisters of course, but I never did.

But were you happy, by yourself?

I kind of used to thing, amuse myself, I’d play. I was quite a, quite, you know I’d do things. I’m trying to think what I would do. Drawing and ‘cos I always drew and crayons and thing and do pictures and then I’d sort of have this little museum that I used to try and buy little bits and make little placards and, describing what it is and things like that.

Were you encouraged to draw?

Yeah. I certainly can’t think of a – now and again it would annoy him if I was drawing and he was, you know, do something a bit more constructive. But no, I was never, certainly never encouraged or not encouraged. I wouldn’t say they were indifferent. No, they encouraged them I think. Yeah, I think they, you know. Well I would show them what I’d done and it was good. I can remember my father sitting with me and he said, ‘Oh, let’s go for a competition’ in the paper, draw Rupert the Bear or something like that, I can remember things like that.

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Is that the sort of thing you would have drawn?

No. Aeroplanes, armies, soldiers… I would try and copy a picture. You know, kind of streets and things. Yeah. Rocket ships, man going to the moon – all those kind of things.

Sounds like you were quite an imaginative child.

I think I was, yeah. I think I was. As you say, you’re on your own a bit, you have to be a bit. Yeah, say I’d go up to Blackheath, it wasn’t Blackheath was it, it was the Grand Canyon or it was whatever, or the kind of, the crusaders going over the hill, you know it was something else, wasn’t it always. And if you was on your bike you was sort of, either you was in a motorbike going through, taking supplies through the bombs – you know, there was always some imagination you used.

And would you say that it was fuelled by stories you’d read, or something else?

I wasn’t that great a reader. Cinema, but there wasn’t avid cinema, so you know, once a week you’d go to the cinema. My mother would go once a week usually, once every fortnight. Father never. I suppose some storybooks, comics, other children. You might see, there might be a film or something you’d go and see like, as I say, a film like Attila the Hun, maybe [inaudible] and you was Attila, you know, against the last days of Rome really, when they were sacking – he sacked Rome, didn’t he, Attila? And you kind of, and the thing that he had was this kind of pagan stick with all bits hanging off it and Attila’s sister was carried out in front of Attila. Well I think we made one of those and course that was a big – and then we was Attila the Hun, the gang. Things like that.

So you made your own costumes?

Yeah, we made our own costumes. There was a bit of that, mm. Always find bits of old, my mother’s old clothes or something and ripped the seam off sometimes and we made costumes, yeah. With kind of belts and swords and try and find boots and that and even paint the boots, black or – yeah, we was kind of, yeah dressed up, always dressed up a bit.

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Can you sort of describe maybe one particular…

Outfit. I think I had an old blazer and I put, had a belt round it. Tucked my trousers into socks, then you’d have your gun belt round the middle as well and then you might have a strap over one thing which held your – although you had a sword there, maybe have a bow and arrow and a quiver and a hat and you know, you kind of, sort of outfits, mm. Quite a lot of that.

And colourful?

Well yeah, not that much colour at the time. You couldn’t wear a, you know I wouldn’t put my mother’s printed floral frock on or something and try to make… but you’d try to find scarves and a bandanna, you know, things like that and bits, and gloves and whatever.

So, would they always have been things that your mother had sort of given up on or…

Well occasionally might buy a gun belt or a scabbard for a sword or something, in a shop. Occasionally at Christmas or birthday you’d ask for certain things and then you’d – ‘cos I think my mother or whatever had given up, as you say, given up on, old clothes of mine. I don’t know where these bits come from, they just came, you know, no specialist shop or you know, just bits that were around that you use your imagination to fit into whatever you would role play and whatever game you was going to play.

And would you ever have got into trouble with your mother for…

Taking things? Might have took a pair of gloves or something. Might have done. I can’t remember, doesn’t… not big, ‘cos obviously that wasn’t, whatever it was wasn’t an important factor.

When you played these games, would you have had a lead role?

Yeah, quite… I tried to occasionally have a lead role. There was a few children around and one or two would organise a game. There’s always a dissenter who wouldn’t knuckle

Tommy Roberts Page 111 C1046/12 Track 10 down of course, and that kind of thing, so he didn’t… you know, you weren’t going round forcing, like bullyboy tactics. Then they had older children come of course and they’d take over and you’d have to run off or whatever. A little bit, children are always territorial and there was a few places to play. There was, as I say, places had been bombed and there was allotments and there was all the heath, but it was a bit territorial ‘cos if older kids had come from some other part of the heath or down the road, because we bordered Deptford, and they’d come up the hill and that would be the end of that. And if, quite interested in making a game hut or a shed or a – always trying to you know, make a place where you could kind of… you know, I can remember making a headquarters out of bits of wood and old bits of corrugated iron and you’d crawl in it and you could sit in there with a candle and pretend, I suppose you’d you know, plan what your activities were. And course the big kids come and would knock it all down.

Would you, can you describe a den like this – was there furnishings inside?

I think you might have even tried to find a bit of old wood to sit on and put it on two house bricks, and yeah, you would try and furnish it really, in a funny way. And you’d sit there and that’s where you’d meet. Then we found an old shed that had been left on an allotment so we made that the headquarters, but in the end you always fall out with each other and I think it all got pushed down in the end and that was the end of that one.

When the older kids would come along, was there ever any kind of bullying as such?

Well they would have if they’d have got hold of you wouldn’t they? I mean sometimes you stood your ground and then could be a little bit confrontational. But it’s funny with that, often it’s not the actual physical, it’s the actual what, you know, it’s the hearsay or the this or I can’t remember, they’d say, Johnny Streeter’s coming. And who’s Johnny Streeter, but you’re obviously again, Johnny Streeter, my God, you know. You don’t even know who it is. Perhaps it would be… I could never remember seeing this person. If this person was supposed to be gonna come up the hill to see what’s going on, you’d be looking out for days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Johnny Streeter knows about you, he knows your name. He’s after you, mate. Things like that. Funny isn’t it?

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So you had the shed – how big was it?

I can’t remember, it was just like a garden shed. Now that I can’t remember what was in there, it’s a long time ago. But we used to dress up there and play kind of… but you know, you might find a busman’s, an old busman’s peaked hat and you’d wear – I always remember wearing a, I think I had an old busman’s peaked hat and that was quite good, always wore that. Another child would wear an old army hat that his parents had given him, so you had a hat. I can remember all standing outside the shed and having our photograph taken once years ago. As a gang. I don’t know what we called ourselves, we must have had a name but I can’t remember now. And then you’d have sort of sticks and they could be like spears and things like that.

So you weren’t the only one that dressed up?

No, no. Two or three, hardcore of about five that made an effort. This went on for quite a while. I think we were still at it at like eleven or twelve. Perhaps we was late developers in those days, but no, we’d still have games at eleven and twelve. ‘Cos you didn’t have records or pop, that wasn’t around. There wasn’t other things. Occasionally a girl would come and that would be a bit annoying, you know. So-and-so’s sister would come and pouty face, and I don’t like this and that stupid shed and course, I suppose they see it very clearly [laughing] as being stupid. But that would be very, very annoying, ‘cos they’d take, they’d say why do you wear that stupid hat or something. [laughs] And somebody said, we’re not playing if she’s around. Well I’m gonna play with you, and that, you know. Funny though. I used to play with two girls, sisters who lived up the road. We used to have games and things and they’d come round, Ann and Jennifer and I don’t know what we’d play. I’d be playing with an aeroplane or something. The older one was quite – Ann was my age and the other one was about two years younger, but she would kind of – always trouble anyway. They always ended up crying and a scene.

So what was your sort of attitude to girls at that age, twelve or so?

I don’t think it was overly curious really, about girls. They seemed to sort of spoil it, in a way. No, I’m trying to think. Well they’d be talking about babies and things like that, I

Tommy Roberts Page 113 C1046/12 Track 10 don’t know what. [laughs] Or their dolls and things and that would be, you know, you wouldn’t be interested in that would you? I don’t think I was anyway, no. I always remember, one of them had a toy pram and it was really nice. I think the father had got it before the war from…

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…Holland or something, it was an unusual shape, I remember that.

An unusual shape?

Powder blue, like a little toy, you know, for a doll’s pram. Had big sort of solid wheels and I don’t know why, that’s stuck in my mind, I thought that’s quite… It was unusual and it would stick in your mind, really. It was different. But I can’t think of anything else really.

Would you have smoked with your friends in the shed?

No, that was later. Twelve years old you might have done, yeah. Somebody might have – well you could buy five fags, five Weights, and I think you might have smoked in the shed. Not eleven, but about twelve, yeah, occasionally. Broke the fag, cigarette in half and shared it and things like that. Coughing and spluttering. You know, then a boy’d take from his father’s box perhaps a cigar and that all would be passed round so everyone was ill and things like that. The drink, I can’t think. I can remember once getting a pint of beer. I think we all drunk, we cut it with half water and half beer and I thought that I didn’t like that. I remember that once, but I can’t think, you know.

What was your attitude towards new people coming to the group?

Well usually they were a disappointment, ‘cos they didn’t feel, you know, they weren’t prepared to – there’d be casual visitors that come, I’m not gonna do, you know, I don’t

Tommy Roberts Page 114 C1046/12 Track 11 want to play that, I want to play something else so it was always an interference and an annoyance in a way. We had… But then I had friends who lived a bit further away to come occasionally, so you’d have a different sort of game I imagine, you know. But the ones who lived locally.

Who were they?

And then they’d come round the house knocking and my – that would annoy my mother sometimes, or my father, he would say, ‘Your public at the door’. You know, ‘I don’t want any boys round here now. I don’t want any boys in this house today’. Things like that. Then I’d have a couple of school friends who’d come. ‘Cos we’d have a kind a, quite a good, a game and go round their house after school for an hour, do that. Then there was a youth club as well. Like a youth club where you could go. Then I was in the scouts for a while. Cubs or whatever it was.

So who were the boys that you would hang around with most often?

Well the naughty boy up the road a bit, Bellat [ph], I would knock around with him a bit ‘cos he lived up the road.

What was his name?

Bellott, Leon. I suppose now, I always think, ‘cos then I realised, he was born in 1941 and that was the year when Trotsky got the ice pick in his head in Mexico, so obviously being like, they would just think for example, they wouldn’t have seen any, his parents would never seen it as political or anything like that or Stalin had even had agents to find him in Mexico City and kill him, Leon Trotsky, they would have seen that name in the papers, ooh that’s a nice name, I’ll name my son after it, you know. You know, it’s funny isn’t it? And course lots of children were named after film stars. There was a film star called Sylvia Sidney, so the older sister was Sylvia and the friend of mine was called Sidney. But I suppose it is the same today. Waynes and this and that and all the rest of it. Liams and Seans and Bethanys and all these sort of funny names. We would never do anything like that in our house, it was always a bit proper in a funny way. Not proper, nice to name your

Tommy Roberts Page 115 C1046/12 Track 11 children anything, I’m not saying that. But course it was different days, but yeah, I always thought it was Leon, it took about twenty years afterwards the penny dropped. Obviously he was born in… he must have been born when Trotsky got done, you know, that was why he got the name. I don’t think his parents were Trotskyists or anything like that, they probably wouldn’t have understood any of it, just saw it as something in the paper, thought they’d name him that.

The museum that you made in that house, can you describe it?

Well I’m trying, it’s hard to find, you know. Well I think we, we had lodgers and then these lodgers left and then we had a schoolmistress and I think my mother and her argued, my mother couldn’t stand the woman and she left, so it was like two biggish rooms. So I thought we, me and my friend Barry, we thought we’d have a museum. So what was in it? Well I think we found an old gas mask and a Second World War helmet and – oh then my father bought a whole load of old guns and spears and pikes from this auction, so we had quite a good show. Arabian musket and a halberd pike and then this – and then I’d look at the history book or the books, ‘cos I always liked history and things, and try and find out what year. And then I say it was ‘Halberd’ – course it wasn’t, it was probably a late nineteenth century one – but I’d say ‘Halberd from Queen Elizabeth the First’s reign’ and I’d make a little sign and hang it on it, so we had all these things. And so come to the museum, threepence to come and have a look in the museum. I can’t imagine anyone giving the threepence. I think my father paid threepence and my mother. But then we had this museum and it was all laid out round this table. I think it must have, I don’t know if it lasted that long ‘cos my father… yeah, he would have come and seen it, but he was slightly indifferent to it really.

Can you describe the placing of the objects?

Well I think on a table we placed something, put a little placard beside it. I can’t remember the objects were, things we were given perhaps and old pair of clogs or something like that. Fancy, make a story up of course, if we could, always make a story up. And then that’s, then we laid it out, this museum. And then we went in, me and my friend Barry went in for shows. So where these French windows were, you’d have this

Tommy Roberts Page 116 C1046/12 Track 11 quite lovely big room and I think my parents had the bedroom there for a while ‘cos it was a lovely room overlooking the garden. It had big drapes, so we pulled the drapes together and I think we worked out stage shows like singing, you know, songs and dancing and things and open the things and do a little show.

So you would have performed?

Yes, like a little show, that’s right.

Singing, dancing?

Yeah, I can’t remember what. Maybe a song we’d have learnt off by heart and whatever, a bit of comedy, did the sort of slapstick Keystone Kops stuff or something, not dressed up but you know, very, very… I can remember doing that a couple of, I think we did it for two Sunday afternoons or something, you know.

So your audience would have been who?

Well, my grandparents perhaps or – I don’t think there was children our own age really, I can’t think. Mother, friend, you’d only have like four or five people sitting there. It’s a bit misty, I can’t really think… I can remember doing that.

Did you like being on stage?

I think I quite liked that. ‘Cos later on we tried to do it again, but we kind of… yeah, that’s what we did. Quite liked that.

But the museum – where d’you think you and Barry would have got the idea for it?

Well, I think going round the museum, probably going up to Kensington Museum or – used to go to the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, used to like that, always go round there, often go round there. I quite liked museums really. I thought they were a bit imposing, they were not like they are today. So I can remember going to a museum even like

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Kensington and all the lights would be off and the bloke would come and switch the light on for you to look at the cabinet. So I suppose that’s where it must have come from, but I can’t think that I was obsessed with museums or I needed my own… you know, it was just a thing I thought to do. Probably I thought it was a way of extracting threepence off people as well. That was a most important part of it as well, you know. Very… for minimal outlay, things you were given, to get threepenny bits off people. Perhaps that was the reason for it.

Although you think only your father paid?

I don’t think many paid, no. [laughing] I don’t think many paid. I can’t remember now, it was… I can’t remember now.

What was it that you liked about, for example the Maritime Museum?

I liked the models, beautiful ship’s models. Lovely paintings. Wonderful heroic paintings of the Battle of Trafalgar or whatever. I mean I’m always impressed with those things. Beautifully executed, beautifully done, large scale and I was always, even as a youngster I was impressed with that. Beautiful models, you know from – ‘cos the Navy would always commission a model of a ship and they’re very rare, but they had a lovely collection in their cabinets. And you’d see Nelson’s uniform that he got killed in Trafalgar and things, and it was not far, too far away and it was, I used to like that museum. Where else? There was museums, they were always open all the time. And Woolwich had one where the Royal Artillery, at the Rotunda. I think I had a couple of visits there as well but you had to go certain days. Always one to look at things, you know. Everyone else, oh come on, I’ve had enough of this old place, and I’d still be lingering, looking or something. I don’t know, that’s where perhaps it come from.

Who would you have gone with?

I think a friend. I don’t think my parents, I don’t think my father was particularly keen on going round museums. But we’d have days out. We might go to somewhere like Winchester and have a look at the cathedral and things like that, you know, visits. Where

Tommy Roberts Page 118 C1046/12 Track 11 would we go? Might go to Rochester. I suppose anything within a day’s drive really, from London. Twice he’d go and see my grandmother who lived in a caravan near Slough. My father’s mother. But I don’t think he liked going and seeing her really and there was always a scene and he had to be prodded and go twice and year and give her some money and whatever. I don’t think she was in a caravan ‘cos she couldn’t afford anything, she just liked living in a caravan. She wasn’t a gypsy, but she quite liked it I think, a mobile home on the outskirts of Slough. Funny isn’t it?

Would she have moved around?

No, no, no. It was firmly there. Well her daughter lived there, my father’s other elder sister lived round there, family in Datchet, which is near there. So you’d go there. Quite interesting. ‘Cos my father always stopped, which was very annoying, halfway and say I’m tired and go to sleep for twenty minutes. Had to sit in the car. And then, going past London Airport when it was only a few Nissan huts and things like that, you know, quite interesting. It was always a bit of a journey, always was, always is, still is of course, from south-west, from south-east to west is always a journey. No direct route. But he used to steel hisself to go there, was never one for any, like that, visiting. He couldn’t bear it. [laughs] Then I’d go off to see my, often go and see my cousins who lived there and that was quite interesting and they always have a game.

But when you were lingering around museums and everyone else was trying to drag you on, what was the thing that kept you?

Perhaps I was, I get into the little details I suppose, of something like that. I want to look at the details. I don’t remember now, but you know, didn’t last like that, I’d get fed up like all the other children, had enough then. Then you might touch something and told to get out the museum because you mustn’t touch anything – when it says ‘don’t touch’ you touch. It’s a very small part of my life you know, I mean a fraction. Right.

Something we haven’t talked about at all really is school. You mentioned you remember going to your first school in that cold winter.

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Yeah, well that was just, well I was very young, I can’t remember that at all. And then of course when I went to Blackheath Rise I went to the St Stephen’s Church of England School. It was a small sort of school, and being there really. And quite funny, there were all the teachers there. Most of them, again you realise years later what they were, a lot of the teachers. I mean there was Miss Guernsey who did the class who was quite nice and these like, these sort of spinster ladies, which I suppose I always thought was old, but probably they were only about thirty-eight or something. And obviously it was a time of contracting colonialism. Colonial times, it was contracting. And these were people again, probably missionaries, Church of England people who’d been in Sierra Leone for twenty years or they’d been, somewhere, Guyana or whatever and of course come back. And what did they come back to? They were all – nothing much. I suppose a bedsitting room in Lewisham and they were found a job in the school and teaching something, but they always seemed to be a bit, twitches and things, ‘cos I don’t think they were very, didn’t seem very happy a lot of them. And I can’t remember many teachers – a man, he was very nice and the old lady who teaches us, she was very, very nice. And then, what did we do? It was quite a nice school, mind you. I used to like doing the school play and you know, they do a Christmas thing. And I got my painting – I did a painting of elephants – and I got it in the LCC exhibition in, on the Embankment there and that, the local schools and… I didn’t sort of shine as a great scholar. There was no-one… the quality of teaching was quite poor in a funny way. The very bright would have still seen theirself through anyway. But I kind of needed a bit, to be a bit lazy so… and then I went to, and then I left there when I went to Catford Central School. You know these schools that were sort of central – they weren’t grammar, but they weren’t secondary… they were in between. Sort of central schools. Catford Central School for Boys.

But the first one, was it St Stephen’s?

Yeah. I was there till I was eleven. You know, Eleven Plus.

Can you describe that school at all?

Yes, it was a bit of a little gothic kind of little kind of oddment place really. It’s knocked down now. Probably built in the late nineteenth century. Wasn’t what I call school board

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Victorian, like there’s a big… looked like a bit churchy, a bit gothic. Had little classrooms and little playground. And I suppose it was funded by, you know by the – ‘cos the LCC, you know the London County… took them over didn’t they? And the vicar used to come round and the clergyman and you’d have a lot of religious instruction, was quite a big thing there, prayers in the morning. Quite sweet, quite nice really, a nice place. No great pressure, no ghastly kind of, no really ghastly kind of bullying or anything.

What did religion mean to you as a child?

We weren’t really a religious, you know I mean, I can’t, we had no… my father wasn’t religious one bit. And my mother - they weren’t really religious, it’s crazy to think. Once the vicar come round and served a cup of tea or something, ‘cos I was going to the local school. I had to go to Sunday School, I don’t know why. I think that was more to get me out the house on Sunday afternoons to be truthful with you. And that was at St Stephen’s, I used to attend that, for a while you know. Oh, I got confirmed, that was the thing. I think you just did really. You know, but I don’t… religion, I’m slightly… sometimes I’m quite interested. Other times I think it’s ridiculous. It’s a sort of, blows hot and cold with me really. I wouldn’t say I’m a religious, you know, I can understand people going to a monastery and following a life of solitude and peace and quiet and kind of you know, what do you do? My mind’s gone a bit. You know if you’re a, what is it? Buddhist or something, you – what d’you do? When you sit there and you…

Er, meditate?

Yeah. You could kind of maybe think about meditating, I can understand that, but I wouldn’t, you know, I don’t say I’m doing it for sort of Jesus or whatever, or whatever religion, you know. Basically I think, when you’re dead you’re dead and you’re gone. I don’t think there’s much goes… that’s what it is and it’s just kind of these rules, what I call the ‘desert religions’, you know, Judaism, Christianity and Mohamed… you know, they’re just these rules were made and they’ve gone on and on. You know, the same God and the same God and he’s been on and on and on, and I suppose if you had been a slaving… in ancient Rome you might have thought there was, to have a future, afterlife was very, very important ‘cos that’s where it got formed really. I mean that’s what

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Christianity was, by St Paul really, Saul. He went round and course you know, it had only been for Jewish people, Christianity really really early days, till he went and he got Greeks interested and he formulated, he got the you know, and slaves were interested ‘cos it gave them a chance and that’s how it grew. You can see how it grew, in a way. It’s not through someone coming out the sky and you know, it kind of evolves. Like political things in a funny way. And I suppose the same for Judaism, even five, six thousand years ago, you can see how that grew and oppression and how ancient E… you can see that it’s evolved through your circumstances. And like you know, same today with Muslims, it’s beliefs that really are gonna be, you know it just holds people together and course once they know that’s gone, there’s no respect for the older people, you know, in their own community and it dissipated. But that’s what’ll happen eventually anyway.

When you were young, you said…

Sorry about that rant.

You said you believed that when you’re dead, you’re dead – when you were young, did you know anyone that died?

No. Didn’t happen very often, no. No, very, no I didn’t sort of, the likes of being carted off to funerals and you know, going to Ladywell Cemetery and all that. No I can’t remember any, can’t remember once ever going to a funeral to be truthful. Ever. No. Well, you’re younger, your grandparents are in their late fifties, you know, whatever. It doesn’t come till later usually, that. Unless there’s a terrible tragedy like a child gets run over or you know, but I can’t remember any of that, no, I can’t remember a tragedy like that, no.

So at that school, you didn’t, I think you said you didn’t excel any subjects, is that…?

Certain things I liked. English I kind of quite liked. History I always liked. Art I liked. But then you didn’t, you know, you was taught by one person. You didn’t have the mathematics teacher coming in and things. So you had to be really bright I think to have got through, it was harder. I mean to have made it through to a grammar school would

Tommy Roberts Page 122 C1046/12 Track 11 have been more difficult if you’d come from that school. Probably a bigger school, it might have been a bit more rougher and a bit more kind of harder to do, but it would probably have been better in a funny way. But I don’t regret going there, I mean I’m not saying that, no.

What were the backgrounds of the other boys – was it just boys or mixed?

Oh mixed. A children’s school. Well I suppose they were ordinary lads went there, the father worked for the Council or – but you didn’t really know ‘cos you didn’t go into that really and it would have been very rude to ask or enquire or sort of earwig, try and listen in. I didn’t really know. I couldn’t say that I knew what they did. Their fathers went and done something, but you didn’t really, it would have been unseemly to have took too much interest in that side of things. Even then you sort of realised that. Mind you, I can remember children who didn’t have electric, only had gas lighting and things and the father would play the piano in the Sunday afternoon and things like that.

Did you have a uniform there?

You did have a uniform, you had a uniform. Blazer and hat. You had a uniform. Always had a uniform at school, yeah, always had the uniform. Quite orderly. There was a rougher school up the road and there would be a bit kind of scene sometimes with that, but usually it was – quite nice people really, in a way. I remember the clergyman, Father Hancock come round and there was an older, sort of Irishman who was the head of the, head vicar, ‘cos those days, the church might have like the old boy, the head of it and then they might have two clergymen working under him and things, you know. Bigger then, ‘cos of the schools and the Sunday Schools and the this and the that. I can remember about the older one, you never saw him or if he came round, he had like gaiters on, you know. Old-fashioned gaiters. Once he come round, that was a scene. And you could tell, the other vicar was… like physically shake when he come in the room, frightened the life, he’d be frightened to death of this man, the old priest. The younger priest would, you know.

Were you frightened of him?

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I can remember, I don’t think you do, you go round the corridor you know, I heard a conf… once, you know, conference there, ‘What were doing, why was you there?’. ‘Oh well I’m sorry…’ ‘Well you know you should…’ The man must have come out of the army and I suppose the man was forty-five, being really told off by a man of seventy, you know. But as a child, that’s kind of quite extraordinary.

But were you frightened of them at all?

Not really, I didn’t come in… you didn’t come into contact with authority like that. Yeah, I can’t say I was frightened, you wouldn’t, you know. You could toe the line a bit. Certainly, I mean you wouldn’t want to be ten minutes late for school or things like that.

What was discipline like?

Oh I think they’d smack you, you’d get a ruler across your fingers and things like that, I think. But, some of these old dears, later, well these women who, older of these women, they were a bit kind of fierce. A couple of them used to take us swimming. A great big woman, she had enormous thighs and she was very fierce and frightened of her. Not frightened… ‘Course you can swim there.’ Children half choking to death in the middle of the pool and, ‘Well, just keep going’. I remember that. Couple of them there were kind of, you’d think well I wouldn’t… bit fierce. Kind of extremely ugly as well, which is a kind of thing you kind of, even as a child you sort of notice that.

What…

I can’t remember many men around, that’s the truth. I can’t remember many men. They all seemed to be sort of middle-aged ladies. I can’t remember many men. Oh there was a younger woman who might have been marriable, she was quite normal. Was probably married with a husband, family, taught younger children there. I can’t remember what she looked like.

Did you do swimming?

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I did swimming, yeah.

How did you find sport?

Well I used to do a bit of sports. I wasn’t a big sporting person, but I mean there wasn’t great big, you know, there wasn’t running tracks like you know, it was old-fashioned, there was nothing like that. You’d have a sports day and egg and spoon race and you’d do swimming. I think they had to take, I would imagine it was probably the LCC, part of the rules wasn’t it? Children had to have an hour’s swimming a week. You know, I would think it’s a thing to get the, you know I’m, presumably looking at it nowadays, probably to get their grants they had to do these things. No, I can’t remember running tracks, it just wasn’t on for that sort of school.

But did you enjoy sports?

Yeah, I think we did. I can remember playing football, rounders and things. Yeah, I quite enjoyed it. Didn’t excel very well, but I quite enjoyed it.

And you said you liked history – what were they teaching you?

I can’t remember now. I mean you’d have the British Empire I suppose. You know I can’t think there’s one very, a teacher who sort of really was wonderful and tuned me into history, I can’t remember that. I can remember at my older school getting full marks for history and the man said I was cheating, ‘How could you get full marks?’ I said, ‘Well I did’. He said, ‘No, you was cheating, you’re cheating’. I remember getting the cane for getting full marks. And that put me off and after that I never bothered again. Funny isn’t it? You’re a liar, you didn’t get full…

[End of Track 11]

[Track 12]

Tommy Roberts Page 125 C1046/12/12

…I did, you know, I did. You cheated, you’ve been looking at that… I said, ‘No sir, you know, I did it’. ‘No you didn’t, you’re a liar, go and get the cane.’ I remember that. But that’s often school.

Why did he think that you were lying?

I don’t know why, I wasn’t in his class, he was a horrible little thing and I would have been in a lower class to this class and I think I had to go into this class for the day or, I can’t remember why, and I beat the ones who was in the class. Only ‘cos I liked the subject and I kind of knew the answers really, I remembered them. But he wouldn’t have it and he just wouldn’t have it.

D’you know what the sort of questions were?

I don’t know, I suppose who… you know, I mean what would they have been? Who was the English king in a cloth of gold or something, I don’t know, things like that I would imagine. Who was the son of Henry the fourth or why do we have the Battle of Crecy or what was the reason – things like that, you know. What was the – I mean I can’t remember, but I would imagine. I would imagine. I think the history, it went up to about, I was quite, kind of quite liked it ‘cos – oh we’d have current affairs, that was another, I used to like that. But that was the older school, that was current affairs. Modern history. I think we went up to nineteen, the first Labour Government after the war it went up to, which seemed very, very close and I thought well that was interesting, you know. Don’t know why. [Interruption – break in recording]

Yes, I was just wondering, I mean what was it about history that really interested you, was it, you know, kings and queens or battles, that sort of thing?

I suppose so. It was slightly romantic and it was every, it’s going to both the edges of the spectrum wasn’t it; from gruesomeness to wonderfulness, and things and how things come about and I was just kind of interested really. You know, I could always remember who the kings and queens of England were and things like that, I don’t know. Probably parrot fashion a bit, but there you are.

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But you liked the gruesomeness as well?

No, I mean I just quite liked the romance of it really and it was quite interesting… and it’s to do with where you live and place and I was always interested in the history of the area. You know, I’m always interested, if I’m living in borders of Blackheath and Lewisham I want to know why there were the silk mills there and did Huguenots come in the early eighteenth century, thrown out from France and start up silk mills on the River Ravensbourne. You know, I was just kind of quite interested really in things like that. That’s part of it, ‘cos it’s all connected with that, you know. Geography and history. I liked geography. [interruption – pause in recording] Yeah.

So, it was the links with your local environment often that…

Not only that, but often and you think oh, you know and it’s, and then you kind of, I suppose like battles and there’s something, and you know, the American Civil War or the Crimean War. I just found it quite interesting really.

Was there a…

And you know, and how things come or St Augustine, why did he come to Kent and he obviously, you know, and then I’d sort of read about it, well it was obvious the Queen was already a Christian and it was a political thing. The Pope said it wasn’t a political… it was a political thing. Up north wasn’t, [inaudible] religious thing, like St Colombo and living in those kind of, Holy Island and that and monasteries. But why would they come there, because they already had had the groundwork done and so you know, they stayed, they come from Rome, they’d already had it planned out and they, you know, they weren’t monks, they were kind of emissaries from the Vatican to further control of the, you know. Things like that, you know, and whatever and things, and Huguenots and Jewish people coming. Even from Spain, like even earlier and why did they come from… there, ‘cos there wasn’t pogroms in Spain, but why did they come? Well they come to trade, ‘cos they were trading here with certain things, so they had communities here in the East End before – you know, I don’t know why, it’s just interesting, that was all really, you know.

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Would you visualise things while…

Yeah, visualise of course. Yeah. See ‘em walking down the street and going in there, you know, what they’re doing. Oh yeah, visualise it, got to visualise it. Half of it isn’t it? Kind of want to even know how they spoke and well, you know, language changes all the time. Probably if you was, you know if somebody come in and they were a Londoner from 1930, you might find it difficult to understand. [adopts accent] Well I’ll meet you down the old, I’ll meet you down the coffee shop. You wouldn’t really know what they meant, you know, they meant the cafe, the coffee… it all changes, so I kind of find that fascinating really.

Have you always found London…

Yeah London I find it, well because I’ve lived here, so you do find it interesting. But then the Dover, I find that kind of, you know I find there’s all… everywhere’s got things and people, wherever you go. Up in the north of England. I love the northern, you know, I like the northern moors, I like Richmond, you know, I mean Yorkshire and I like Durham, Durham Cathedral on the hill overlooking that river is a sort of fantastic place. How come they built that kind of thing with that kind of slightly oriental stonework in there and things. You know, I find it interesting, that’s all. So it’s kind of, it’s three-dimensional in a way, it’s not on paper. But that’s, history is, you know, I always felt you’ve got to – like Russell said – I said well you’ve got to understand the past and know the future and certainly understand today. But they don’t see, they won’t see that, you see. It’s all bunkum and it’s no interest. The reasons for these terrible things that go on, reasons. And wonderful things that go on and things that are forgotten and you know, and you can see things going, could end up going, not catastrophic, but then you think well, there’s gonna be a draconian change in twenty years’ time because you think, and then no-one’ll be prepared for it, but if you sort of know about the past, you can see it coming, you know in a way you can kind of half visualise it.

At the end of last…

Tommy Roberts Page 128 C1046/12/12

And if it’s important… never really been, it has never earned me a pound note, but I’m just saying, it’s interesting.

It reminds me of the end of last session, you were talking about you know, if you were to start up a new business and the whole fashion thing and you were talking about how one predicts what’s gonna happen and…

That’s very difficult. People are good at predicting but they usually get the timing wrong. You know, in the sixties by this time, by the 1990s we were all gonna work two days a week and it was gonna be a life of ease with computers and no-one’s gonna, you know, an afternoon’s work at home would suffice for your week’s wages. But obviously not. But sometimes these things do come about, but the timescale’s wrong. It comes much later than you think, usually. It’s hard to predict, you know. It’s always quite interesting to look at people’s predictions of the future from the past. So, the person in 1930s, you know the 1930s people were into like health and efficiency and wearing aertex shirts and lovely air and all that, and sort of – which got extreme with fascism ‘cos it is kind of built with all that, all part of that – but they would envisage, apart from that side of it, they’d get all that, but they would envisage like, they would envisage a person in shorts walking about, and sandals, but they couldn’t envisage and have short sleeves, but they’d still have a collar and tie. They couldn’t envisage it would be like you’d walk about in a vest or something. D’you see what I mean? It’s very hard to, you know, it takes an abstract sort of brain really to visualise like that.

When you were a child in the late forties, early fifties, I mean were you aware of sort of you know, science fiction, futuristic…

Quite liked sci… yeah, a little bit, mm, little bit. Little bit, I suppose you know, you might think I don’t want to be… you know, you obviously thought and I still don’t know why they haven’t built a little kind of thing that floats really, and you all, and the traffic was controlled up in the skies and you know, you felt the technology was there to do that and would have certainly been by now. But obviously not, it’s obviously too expensive or… It’s alright, science fiction, but they don’t build in the economics of it. You know, they think well, all got to float but then the fuel to keep you up there would be very, ten times

Tommy Roberts Page 129 C1046/12/12 dearer than normal… you know, there’s always some very important element left out of these predictions. Usually economics. Or lifestyle, or you know, they can’t envisage people – they can envisage people, you know they probably – there was all those people in the thirties who wanted to live a simple lifestyle and communities in Sevenoaks all living together. I suppose by the year 2010 they imagined no marriage, but you know, there’d be like a hundred women, a hundred men and three hundred children all being communally looked after in a great big wonderful thing and all, everyone’s, whatever they input into that community and they would have had a lovely, beautiful, everything they wanted in this beautiful, idyllic Shangri La place in the country. But of course we know it hasn’t come to that at all and it’s totally again… you know, and people are more insular than they’ve ever been, in a funny way. So it’s funny isn’t it? But you would have predicted that, couldn’t you? You could well have predicted that in the late thirties I would have thought. You know, that people would go like that, if you would have thought about it. You know, ‘cos they was talking about commun… you know, and Bertrand Russell and philosoph… You would have thought, well it makes sense, that and it would have been quite a nice way to live. But of course people can’t really live like that, there’s jealousies and things and I earn four hundred pound a week, but you only earn two hundred and fifty, why should I put my four hundred in your pot for you to… you know, because human nature doesn’t change. Doesn’t change. We could do the violence or the loving or the whatever, you know, it could be the same as the ninth century as it is today. The only thing, it’s a bit more spread out, but the same ninth century man would have a flare-up with violence and stab his mother-in-law or his wife, because of violence and he’d flare up because they didn’t have education like us, they were children or they were adults, they had no in between. You know, you’re a child at nine, at ten you was an adult and they couldn’t cope with that so that’s why they were more emotional. But afterwards would be the terrible, terrible guilt and thing and walk on your knees all the way to Canterbury or something to try and, forgiveness for this terrible thing. You know you’ve done a terrible thing, but the temper, it couldn’t have been controlled at that time. And we’re all the same as them, people, but it’s all a bit more kind of been flattened out a bit more. But we’re all the same I think basically. And no-one’s learnt nothing. You know we can do technology, but actually living and emotions or basic thing, people haven’t learnt anything really. They can disguise it, they’ll disguise their greed or they’ll disguise their nature or envy or… they disguise it and say this and that, but you know. It’s like, not sort of, about ten

Tommy Roberts Page 130 C1046/12/12 years ago I knew someone who was a, like Hari Krishna or something and they’d be doing all their Hari Krishna thing and I said, that man beats his wife, or his girlfriend. I said I know instinctively, he’s all angry inside and he’ll be hitting that woman. And sure enough it was, it all come out, he’d been hitting the kids and the woman and he broke her arms and all that and he had to be… You know what I mean? ‘Cos you could tell that there was that terrible violence underneath. It had all been placified and that, so… it’s the same. I don’t know what trail I’m going on here. But most people like to conduct theirself, they’re normal people, they don’t get out of control or the thing, that’s most people, but there is areas that people who are like that, whatever they think they’re controlling it or changing their lifestyle and not like that, it will come out. Often it’s in them communities like that. Communal living, this Gurdjieff, I went down, you know, I know my friend was there or somebody I knew was in the Gurdjieff thing. I’ve never known so many sort of, basically angry people really.

Sorry what was that?

Gurdjieff, you know the mystique. Gurdjieff? No. You know, it was a sixties thing, seventies thing, and they had a big country house in the country for followers of Gergev, teachings of Gurdjieff.

You had a friend who went there?

Yes. Not really a friend, I didn’t like him. He was a very angry person underneath and he’d be all loving and beautiful and laid back and really seething underneath. Anyway. [laughs] And it’s that kind of thing. Most people… and that’s why perhaps it’s all very unfashionable at the moment, all that. Perhaps it is, perhaps there’s more people in that kind of thing or interested in that, you know, new age and whatever.

What happened at this Gurdjieff place?

Well I knew he was a musician – I won’t say, he was quite famous actually and then he went off to the Gurdjieff.

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Oh go on, tell us.

Well, Arthur Brown, you know – yeah. Well Arthur, and I was doing some music and I got him a record deal and he went off and I said, don’t just go off there and hide, do this thing for these people, they will, you know, they’ve put their money, you know and I’d got him three and a half thousand pound which he just blew and I said, you’ve got to do ‘em a record. And he said oh, and in the end he did nothing, he totally did nothing. And I said, well why didn’t you do anything? Because…. and it was all that stuff. And I said, oh you, well you know, it was all that hatred. And then he borrowed off someone else quite famous, borrowed a guitar and a thing. I said, well you ought to give his guitar back. No he’s got plenty, he’s done ever so well. It was envy and jealousy. The Gurdjieff treatment didn’t help him at all did it?

What was the Gurdjieff treatment?

Well I think, I don’t quite know, the Gurdjieff treatment, it’s like lots of those things and living a life – I think he was a kind of like – haven’t you heard of the swirling Dervishes and things? You know, they all spin round and all that. I think it’s a kind of like extreme, I think it was a kind of Mohommed, Mohammed, Muslim thing? Perhaps it was a thing like that and they danced and they sung and then they did jobs and I thought this bloke with this big country house got all these people working for nothing, doing all the bloody… Perhaps it’s me being a cynic, I am a bit of a cynic, but I’m usually sort of proved a bit right in the long run.

Was it a bit of a – what’s it? A communal sort of…

Yeah, a community, you know where you went and whatever. I suppose you gave Mr So- and-so your wages – I don’t know what you did. Most people had to have a little bit of money to go there, you would have had to have saved up to go there. You know, couple were there, if you went free you certainly, they made you do lots of work. I didn’t hold with it really. And then they did all the singing and dancing, you know, I thought there’s not one person there with any talent whatsoever. It was like a load of like middle class people – it was ghastly. And Brown did it and he ended up ghastly as well. Ghastly thing.

Tommy Roberts Page 132 C1046/12/12

What was he like…

Jealous, envious, ghastly man. I think he’s always been like that. Ready for an argument really, waiting to have an argument really. ‘Cos then I used to spike him up, can’t remember what I’d say, I’d say something I knew he wouldn’t like. He said, you know, you would like that, that’s… You know, a stupid thing like Mickey Mouse or something stupid and I’d say well I like that. You would, always that duck always whacking people and falling down and banging their, it was all violent. I said, yeah that’s why I like it. You know. I didn’t really, but you’d him get into these made arguments over… I thought… I knew he’d let me down, but he…

How did you come to get involved with him?

Well I dunno why, I can’t remember now. ‘Cos I used to do sort of in music for a while in the mid seventies, you know. And I got Ian Dury a record deal and things like that. But it was before that with Arthur. I thought oh, and I got these people who wanted to do a record so I said would you want to do a record with these people, I can get the money. ‘How much? Give me the…’ you know. ‘Give me the money.’ Boom. I said, well you gotta do the record, I says you know, you said you would do it. But he wouldn’t listen to anything, you know. He said, oh I’m doing it, I’m doing it. Anyway, I won’t even talk about it ‘cos it’s too, the usual, life…

I was thinking a little while back, you know when you were talking about how things you know, go in cycles and the sort of political element to religion and all that sort of thing that you were talking about – did you ever, d’you think you felt or thought like that when you were a young person ever, was that the sort of things that you would think about?

No, I was never politically driven at all really. Not really. In fact, you kind of felt that you had to be Ban the Bomb, because it was, you know, if you didn’t you would – all the jazz clubs and things were Ban the Bomb, but you sort of had to, it was in a funny way you was kind of half forced into it. But actually I wasn’t Ban the Bomb and I never believed in it actually. And I couldn’t bear the people who were involved in it. You know, I wouldn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 133 C1046/12/12 say I liked the bomb, but it seemed to be proved in the long run that if it had been banned I think we would have been much more, you know, it would have been a different world, just what I think. Although, of course it’s wrong, but I, although the thing is basically wrong, a bloody bomb, of course it is, but kind of in a way it, you know the wall come down and it all come to the same, but I’m not sure if that was… It was the people really, not the actual ideology of it all, ideological thing about it, it was the people used to annoy me. You know. They used to say, we’re going to the YCs. Well, either it was Young Conservatives or Young Communists. [laughs] But anything to do with things that I liked like jazz and that was very left wing and I never, you know I – not that I’m, I’m not like an extreme right winger, but I’m not a left winger. And my wife’s an extreme left winger, so it makes me right. So I say well you put your poster for your, in your window and I’ll put my poster in my window.

It sounds like you don’t like to belong to anything?

No, I never really have been a very good joiner of anything, no. No. Well often they wouldn’t have you, I suppose, I don’t know. No, I didn’t fit into it all. Perhaps, I don’t know why. So I never really bothered with that joining, ‘cos it never suited me and they obviously, I didn’t suit them. I mean I was quite easy going, but I don’t know why really.

When I asked you about what it was that you liked about history and you sort of went into the wider reasons, the reasons why you remembered certain things and thought things through, it sounds like for a boy of your age it was an advanced, quite an advanced way to think about things.

Maybe it was. I mean you formulate later on don’t you. I just liked, you know, it’s hard and sometimes you like things and you really don’t know why the actual kernel of the basics why you do, you just do. I mean I suppose the, I said the romance of it, maybe not, maybe just a thing and the costume and the things and the way they lived. But once you get into it, course you get into deeper and then it’s kind of interesting. And, but not that it taught me much about human nature ‘cos I always take people really on face value and I don’t learn – people say I learn the lessons – but I don’t learn the lessons. And that’s history really. You know, the human race don’t learn the lessons, you don’t learn the

Tommy Roberts Page 134 C1046/12/12 lessons. Some very wise people perhaps do learn the lessons. I don’t, I just do the same – I would do the same I did do and the same things. Same mistakes, same whatever. Foolishly, I don’t know. Perhaps I need, you know, perhaps it’s what I like doing.

So then you went to the next school, which was again – can you remind me?

Catford Central School for Boys. So I went there. Uniform and whatever. And then I went at eleven – well no I wasn’t, I suppose I’d been – yeah, so it was September, I was eleven and I suppose I would have – coronation year that would have been, wouldn’t it? The coronation would have gone on in the summer and the New Elizabethans and all that kind of talk was going on at the time. See, that was the thing at the time, people thought that in future, they called it the New Elizabethans, we were, in England, but course, [laughing] that’s nonsense. But, so I went there. And I did, I liked it for a little while and then I didn’t like it.

Can you…

I liked the teachers and then the teachers turned on me or I turned… I didn’t like it.

Can you remember your first day there?

I can remember my mother taking me. Because I was always a bit embarrassed about my mother because she was always very smart and a bit kind of high… you know, but kind of smart and the others weren’t, they were a bit dowdy. Remember this is early fifties we’re talking about. And they’d think, ooh is that your sister or something, you know, whatever. It wasn’t, it was my mother, because she was young. And so I went there with her and that was the first day and you know, I went, with my uniform and got on and that was the end and that’s my first day. That was big, had playing fields and you know, that was a bigger school, different affair altogether. More classrooms.

Sorry, what was that?

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Bigger, it was just bigger, more class… you know, it was a bigger school and playing fields at the back.

What was the building like?

Well, that school board. Late Victorian brickwork. They built them to a pattern, all over London, all over England. They were quite tall, and quite layered weren’t they? You know, I suppose there was the assembly hall and classrooms off to it, then art class was a bit further, then a bit of administration. They were late Victorian, built, I think they called it the Queen Anne style, I think the actual, the building. But they must have built, they built thousands of these schools, that’s what they built with the you know, the asphalted playground and a you know, they were built to a formula. Lot of them were knocked down, but there’s still plenty of them. You know, you go to the adult education centre, it’ll be one of those places won’t it? Later on you took your bike and I went on the bus. Quite difficult from where I lived ‘cos I lived on the heath and either I’d walk right down towards, the hill to, going towards Deptford and get all the way along Lewisham, Catford, that way and walk up Brownhill Road or else I’d have to go right across the heath and get one outside the school gates but you had to walk across the heath and then go that way. Through Lee Green and things.

So you liked it at first?

I liked it and then I kind of, I think I become like lazy, I think I got put off it really. I was quite good at French and he turned on me, the French master. Maybe I was one of these people who [inaudible] but they didn’t like me really. D’you know I think they were, d’you know I think they were a bit jealous because I think my father had a nice car and stuff and I went, I can remember going, I could go to, I went two weeks in June I got off school ‘cos we were going to Italy and something. And one of the teachers, he said, ‘Oh, doing the grand tour, Roberts?’, you know. Jealous. And they didn’t like it. Funny isn’t it?

So how would they…

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I was either in the wrong school for what I should be – I don’t know, you know. But most of the boys, I was fine with that, yeah. I never had any problem with that, you know, always friends, that wasn’t a problem.

But how would the French teacher or whatever, how would he, you know, behave with you?

Well I think he upset me. Emotionally upset me. I think he said something. I can’t even remember what it was, but I remember throwing a book down and walking out and after that it was, spoilt it and he never, you know, he didn’t like me. He was not very nice, I didn’t like him.

D’you know his name?

Can’t remember it now. Bradford? I might remember it, I can’t remember it now. And another guy was there, we used to have – when you was thirteen then you used to have, you could take like commercial studies and things, so I did that.

[End of Track 12]

[Track 13]

What does that mean?

I didn’t like the woodwork and metalwork side of it all, because they had woodwork and metalwork for boys in those days. Even like Eton had metalwork. You know, there was a thing in the curriculum for boys, was woodwork. I hated that. And so I took the commer… that was later on.

But that was called commercial studies?

Yeah, like accountancy. Yeah. You know if Mr Brown took twelve and six in his shop, owed the supplier seven and six and the rent was… you know, that kind of business. And

Tommy Roberts Page 137 C1046/12/13 debit and credit and things like that. I quite liked that. And art, a good art teacher there, big art sort of thing and I could stay in the lunchtime and I could have special days like I’d do a mural or do a big picture or something. But you know, there was quite interesting things. Can we continue this down there and I’ll do a great big session down the coast – would you mind?

[End of Track 13] [Track 14]

So it’s thirtieth of August 2005, interview with Tommy Roberts. Okay, last time we were talking about your experience of school.

Yeah.

And you went to Catford Central School for Boys.

Yeah.

And you said that it was something in between a grammar and a comp?

It was considered in between a secondary modern and grammar at the time, I think. You know, that’s what they all said, you know, that’s what they… Central, but I think it was phased out very early, you know and that’s… But I think there was, places had central schools and they were kind of – and I think they, they did courses on commercial subjects, like bookkeeping and business and things like that, where like the secondary modern school would have more woodwork and metalwork. Anyway, I suppose it was… you know. You didn’t have classics, but that – grammar schools had classics, but central schools didn’t. There wasn’t a Latin teacher there. There was a French, German, I think you could learn Spanish but you couldn’t learn Greek or Latin or anything, you know. It was an in between, seemed an in between affair.

So, why would that school have been chosen for you?

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I suppose by results. I mean I’m not, bit of a lazy scholar and I suppose the results. I think the school where I went wasn’t geared up to put children, you know they only had like sort of old lady teachers and things, little Church of England school and there wasn’t a dynamic guy gonna teach you French or something come along, or advanced arithmetic or anything like, mathematics. It was that kind of school. But then even saying that, one or two people did get to a grammar from there, although they were probably particularly bright. And my friend went to grammar and I think he was very, very bright.

Did you manage to maintain contact with that friend?

I did for a while, but I think he left at fifteen and went to a, you know, he was a bit of a rebel and yeah we did, we were friends for a while and then we fell out like youngsters do.

But did you have any feelings about going to the school you went to, as opposed to another?

I don’t think so. Maybe I did later on in life, but not at the time, no. I resented a lot about – not resented a lot – but I did resent things about that school later on. The teachers were all kind of blokes who’d just come out the army and you know, not proper career teachers and I think they could have done better for the pupils.

But what was your sort of experience at the time of, for example, your first days there?

Well, you went with your mother, uniform, you kind of slotted in in a way. You was a new boy, but then there was probably lots of new boys that year and you slotted in.

And you mentioned the sort of subjects that the school did. How was it sort of structured over the years that you were there?

Well I think, it’s a long time ago, I mean I think you did general subjects up until you was thirteen and then they started streaming you and if you wasn’t, you was awful at sort of woodwork, which I was absolutely dreadful, you could kind of take these other commercial subjects. I think I took bookkeeping for some reason and they had a business

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– I don’t think it was called business studies, I can’t think what it was called then – commercial studies or something and I did that and I did art.

So, what was your, what was the art department like then?

Not too bad, I got on with the art teacher quite well. I had free run of it actually, I could go in there – I used to paint a big mural all along one wall or something. I kind of had a kind of, he gave me a bit of licence the man, he was a nice man and I could do what I wanted in a way.

D’you remember his name?

I could probably, as we go along. Oh no, I can’t just at the minute but… I can’t think of his name.

So, if you were given free rein, was there at the same time, any kind of structure to it?

Well free rein – I could go up there in the lunchtime and do things and use the paints and whatever.

But what things would you have been taught during the lessons in art?

What, in the arts department? Oh, I can remember having to do a thing on a fire, fire you know. And so you’d do a thing on fire. Then you might do a thing on – then he’d say we’ll do a poster on the BFI, British – not Film In…, but British BIF, which is old- fashioned; British Industrial Factories, I can’t remember, you know. And you’d do maybe a picture of spanners or men working. Things like, projects really. And I did a big thing on – I got interested in the Crimean [laughs] War and he said, oh I could do – and I did this big sort of diorama of, painted this in, I don’t know, not in oil paints, like poster paint, a Crimean War scene and things like that, you know.

What was your drawing like? What was your drawing like?

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My drawing? Well, not bad. I never had that real gifted line of drawing that some people do, they have a very fine beautiful line and they do a figure, with two or three lines they can get the density of the figure and the weight of it and the feeling that the person’s feet are on the ground, you know with two or three lines. Well, that’s a kind of gift really. I wasn’t on that level, but I could make my, you know, okay.

And, were you introduced to art movements, art history, at that school?

I used to like drama as well, but I didn’t like the man, I didn’t get on with the drama teacher and I don’t think he, you know, I think he sort of – funny things, you know, well I don’t know, perhaps he was a bit strange this man, but he’d have movement classes for boys. You know, like Greek tableaux and that kind of thing, so, [laughs] which always struck me as quite strange. White like, toga – not togas, ‘cos Greeks didn’t wear togas - but they were white garment and you know, sort of movement classes. Things like that. But I don’t think I fitted his bill really for that. I was too sort of square, tubby, short. Perhaps he thought I had a very common face or something, I don’t know quite what it is, but he obviously had this ideal that – what he was doing in Central School for Boys I don’t know, but that’s what it was. Mr Webster, I remember his name. Mr Webb, I remember his name.

[laughs] But, back to art. Were you introduced to modern art at all?

No, you weren’t really. I mean you’d have Picasso of course, the blue period and things like that, but I think art stopped at impressionism in those days. Impressionism was very avant garde and you kind of might have known about English – who’s the guy who lived at Cookham, you know? My brain’s gone. The man who lived at Cookham. Did all the sort of religious things, Jesus arriving at the Thames and all that. I’ll think of it in a minute. My mind has gone, I can’t think of it. People like that, perhaps. You wouldn’t think much of, I mean French impressionism yeah, but there wasn’t like art history in any depth going on or anything like that. You know, there wouldn’t be a kind of, pick out a Caravaggio out of a book or anything, I mean it wasn’t that kind of thing. Fourteen year old south London lads being taught you know, to see if they could, art and illustration and things like that.

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At that point when you were say fourteen, had you had any thoughts about what you might want to do afterwards?

…I did like art. You know, I would have I think… you know there was no talk of ever going into a profession or anything. You know, I sort of vaguely thought well I might do something in the art world and as I said, my father was in business and I quite admired that and perhaps I thought I’d put those things together, but at fourteen I couldn’t say I was really – oh I used to do things, oh I used to sort of you know, those things that – sell comics at school and those things that you do if you’ve got that sort of mind. You go and buy, take, swap comics and little business ventures on that very level you kind of do really. And of course sometimes it makes – it didn’t me – but often it gets you disliked at school that kind of thing, so you’re very careful.

Swapping comics?

Well yeah, because boys, you know you can have these two comics for a penny or something and the other kids don’t want to pay no effing penny, you know. That kind of thing, caused friction. And they might buy the comics and they haven’t got their dinner money left and things like that. We used to go out the school, they’d have the school lunch there but we didn’t, we used to go right down into Catford down the hill, into Catford shops and we’d have a kind of shilling – they used to do fish and chips for a shilling – you’d get a piece of fish and chips and it was quite… and we used to do that, me and my friends and have a look at the cinema and what’s on at the cinema and things like that and go back to school.

So who were your friends at this point?

Mm?

Who were your friends at this point?

Erm, I mean I’m, people I knew. I still keep contact with one or two of them. Most have gone. Just kind of lads of my own sort of ilk really, same sort of thing. Same sort of

Tommy Roberts Page 142 C1046/12/14 ideas, like we’d go – my friend that went to the grammar school, we’d go and – again, we used to like these comics and books – we’d go and go to the shop that sold the second- hand comics and even paperbacks and whatever. Used to like these – I think he was called [Elson] author, he used to talk about New York teenage gangs, that was in the early fifties and they were very exciting for us, those books. Really liked those. And then we would try and buy these books and read them and then swap them and things.

What were they, sort of novels?

Novel, yeah, yeah, not pictures, the little two and sixpenny novels. So you’d buy a second- hand one for a shilling and read it and then you’d try to swap that with something else. There was two or three authors, it was obviously a big, obviously American thing that they imported over here. Corgi or one of those paperback people used to do a print run for England. Lurid cover, good covers, you know.

Can you describe the covers?

Yeah, I think it was a sort of youth in a sort of leather jacket hanging out of a tenement building in the West Side of New York, Manhattan or something. You know, with a – and those images were really strong, powerful. You know, you’d think oh, that’s fantastic. They were horrid things as well, they’d like, they’d describe how to make a ‘zip gun’ and it was made out of metal and it was like elastic and it was a lethal weapon, it was a ‘zip gun’ and obviously was a thing in these gangs in New York in the very early fifties and that was ever so exciting to read about things like that.

Lethal weapon?

Well I think it was lethal, a zip gun, I think it could kill you, a zip gun.

What does it fire?

I can’t remember now, a little bolt of metal. I can’t remember now, it was called a zip gun. Well I haven’t thought of this for fifty years, but it just, it come into my head, it was one of

Tommy Roberts Page 143 C1046/12/14 the things. And rival – they all had good nicknames, which I can’t remember, like ‘The Duke’ or something. And they had gangs, East Side, the West Side and whatever, so you kind of had – they were sort of aimed at older teenagers in those days. But, ‘cos there was nothing like that around. Juvenile delinquency, very exciting it was, the thought of it.

What was it that really excited you?

Well, they was kind of, they were kind of very, you know, they would, a young bloke then. Got to remember most blokes then, you know they didn’t have their own style, young men in those days were little old men cut down. If dad had the – when they got to fifteen, you accompanied your father to the pub in a little grey suit and smoking a pipe and they’re only fifteen, and there was no in… there was no, until the Teddy boys and that came along, there was no, you know it was kind of like that. Especially sort of upper working class, that kind of lower middle class environment, section. You know, they’d be like their father. You didn’t want to be like that, did you? And course these delinquents, they wore jeans and blue jeans and things, they were hard to get. The clothing was interesting, their lifestyle, the words and you know, you know he’s a – I can’t remember the word, a call, I don’t know, let’s say these words, these fifties words. And just something I remember, and we used to go and try to find these books.

So, there were, was there other sort of things that you would find that related to it?

I always liked old things, I always used to – opposite our school was an antique shop. They knew me, ‘cos I used to go in there all the time and I was always interested in, I don’t know, a book on the South African war and they sort of told me you can have that for two and six or something. And I kind of had an interest in that and that was quite interesting. Oh course, also opposite the school was a hairdresser and he would do for like, again I think like two and sixpence you could go and have a blow wave, which was you could have your hair tweaked up and have a kind of style. Unfortunately my hair’s not like that, but some you know, kids could go over there and have a DA, which is like a, you know swept back hair and – DA, I think it stands for duck arse I think, ‘cos it goes at the back like a duck. But I never had that hair unfortunately, so I always had to have a – later on it

Tommy Roberts Page 144 C1046/12/14 would be called a ‘college boy’. But I envied those people with that kind of hair where they could have a real kind of, well, Teddy boy’s hairstyle.

So, I mean when you’re talking about the New York stories and so on and the jeans and all this stuff, I mean were you aware of this sort of teenager sort of thing?

Well it did, yes. When I was about thirteen, fourteen, started. You know I had long trousers for school, but I couldn’t just wear a, I had to go down to the people who did alterations. Funny, it was a couple who did all the alterations, they were mutes, they were elderly and they were both deaf and dumb, so I’d take a little bit of paper, they’d give you a piece of paper and I’d say, ‘Size fourteen bottoms. Take in fourteen bottoms’ on my trousers and I’d go back next week for the trousers and they would taper the trousers to size fourteen, you know, so you was aware of – going to school with these, and other kids saying, God, you know, you’ve got fabulous drainpipes, and all that, which was a big, the big mark of respect in the school. ‘Cos my, you know, I could go and I had drainpipes, my trousers made into drainpipes. And your school jacket, I don’t know what you’d do with that, quite but you’d try and alter everything. Your school cap and you didn’t wear that unless you, going in the school gate you never wore that of course. And the school tie you’d thin down, you’d machine it so it ended up a ‘Slim Jim’ shape, not a proper school tie; you reduced the size of it so it was like a thin you know, like a sort of Teddy boy’s tie. They were quite kind of innovative, kids with those things, presumably comes a style and so you’d try and wear perhaps a pair of, not the usual your grey or black socks, but you might try and get away with a pair of – they weren’t like pink socks in those days, you couldn’t, but you might try and get away with a pair of like peach-coloured socks [laughing] or something. Just to, you know, little bits to add to it all.

So, how were you aware of what the styles were that – where did you see these styles like the thin tie?

Well the Teddy boy thing really started about 1953. But it had actually earlier started of course in Mayfair with all the smart, the Mayfair set wearing an Edwardian longer jacket and velvet collar perhaps and the tighter trousers, it evolved from that and it was taken up by the working class and become a Teddy boy thing. And – it was before rock ‘n’ roll

Tommy Roberts Page 145 C1046/12/14 really. You know, they used to go, Teddy boys used to the dancehalls, the Lyceum and it was Ken Mackintosh and his orchestra and you know, and cause a scene there. So you know, and then you kind of – and then the newspapers, I would read like The Daily Mirror and disgraceful kind of youths on rampage in a Teddy boy style clothing. Course the more like that, the more you wanted it. So and then I got, when I got to about fourteen I was allowed to go to Berg’s, there’s a tailor in Lewisham, and get a sports jacket. And so instead of having your normal sports jacket, I had a sort of pepper and salt flecked Donegal tweed, a long fingertip [laughs] drape jacket made, which my father was annoyed, it caused a little bit of a rumpus. Then with the drainpipe trousers and then the shoes was always a problem ‘cos they was expensive and you couldn’t get the shoes. So I think there was, you couldn’t have a nice pair of brothel creepers, it wouldn’t be allowed, that, but you’d maybe get a pair of ordinary Oxford shoes, but highly polished ‘em or something just to make it a bit…

So, I mean when did you become aware of this sort of, the way that the style had developed from the Mayfair set?

Never knew about the Mayfair till years later, of course, it wouldn’t come into my firmament would it, I mean I wouldn’t know anything about that. And it’s only – ‘cos it is, it’s, all these things come ‘cos people – and I say, oh my older brother’s in that, the Teddy, my older brother’s in the Teddy boy gang in Deptford or something. You know, it become that’s how things are, it’s like with children really, you know, were only young teenagers. And you already got your style when you felt it was you, wasn’t it, the same for you. You weren’t dressed up like your father and it was against the authorities and it was, you’re making a mark. ‘Cos a lot of kids wanted to leave school early at fifteen, ‘cos they wanted to buy Teddy boy suits and things. So you might get a very clever scholar like my friend who was, I think he was top at grammar school, best scholar, and he left at fifteen to go and work down the docks or somewhere ‘cos he wanted to get some clothing and things. Strong pull, you know, and parents will fight against it as much as they can, but in the end you know, that’s what it was like. Yeah, fourteen, fifteen years old it was all that Teddy boy thing. You go to the fair you see, that was the important part of it, ‘cos they always played, I said before, always played the rock ‘n’ roll rec… rock ‘n’ roll come in when I was about fourteen, I used to go and get, you know, I can remember going and getting

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Elvis Presley and things like that, but Frankie Avalon, more interesting ones actually than that. Always kind of keen on the music. And then the fair you’d go and you’d meet up, but course the only thing is, you’d always end up in fighting so you’d sort of, you’d be very, you know there was a pecking order with all the Teddy people, there was an enormous pecking order. Who was what and who’s thing, all the… So yeah, that’s how it was.

But I mean, was there any kind of…

It wasn’t my whole life, but it was…

Was there any kind of like promotion in the media or anything as regards…

No, there was films. They started to bring out these sort of rock ‘n’ roll films and you’d all go to the cinema, but then you was banned from the cinema ‘cos you’d make trouble and jump on the seats and so we was…

Were you?

… we was, unfortunately, if you wore any of that clothing, you was all banned from the cinemas. And then you was banned from the pubs and you know, it was… if you just even looked like that, in that kind of thing.

So were you banned from the cinema and…

Yeah, because I think by the time Rock Around the Clock come out, we went to the – when they played it I think it was – famous film. Wasn’t called Rock Around the Clock, that was the theme music for the film. That was about juvenile delinquents in a school. Can’t think of the name now. But when the music come on, you jumped on the seats and you jumped up and down, run up and down the aisle and you all went mad, two or three of you and you were thrown out and they kind of, that was it. There was riots. There were Teddy boy riots, in Elephant and Castle there’d be like three hundred Teddy boys marching up the Old Kent Road shouting and – it was seen as it sort of shocking at the time, but now of

Tommy Roberts Page 147 C1046/12/14 course it would be considered not shocking, break a few, couple of windows and it wouldn’t be you know, they weren’t going mass killing each other and things.

What was your parents’ reaction to hearing about the Teddy boys and riots and so on?

Well I don’t think they took much notice of it. I mean it wasn’t a big thing, ‘Ah, look at these youths’, open every paper and there’s these gangs of youths going amok in the street. It was only a little thing, you know, one didn’t go into it and I don’t think my father particularly liked me having the Teddy boy hair – no, I didn’t have a Teddy boy haircut because I couldn’t have the, I didn’t have the right hair for it, but too tight trousers and you’d annoy him. He said you were, you know. And then he called my friend, funny… he’d say, ‘Oh, your friend the Beatle’s here’. ‘Cos he had a black long coat and tight black trousers and my dad would say, ‘Well your friend the Beatle’s here’, ‘cos he called him the Beatle ‘cos he looked like a Beatle. [laughs]

So, why did your father sort of have this reaction to the way that you were dressing and so on?

Well I suppose he thinks you’re a kind of, perhaps mixing with the wrong element is a part of it, isn’t it? And I suppose, you know I mean you’re talking about 1955, it was different attitudes. He was quite a smart dresser, my own father was. He’d wear Italian shoes hisself and things, I mean he wasn’t some old bumbling thing, he was sharp but if he got – although I didn’t find too much problem with it, let’s say that, you know. I had friends who weren’t allowed out the house and they had to have their trousers tucked under their jumper to wear and change when they got round the corner. Especially girls as well, you know. But it was a scene with a lot of youngsters, it was a shocking scene. But I, it was a little bit more liberal and I could sort of, long as I didn’t, offence, show up in the street too much it was okay.

So you said that you know, you didn’t want to look like your father, you know you wanted to be different.

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Well I did quite admire his clothes a bit, yeah, ‘cos he was kind of quite a smart dresser and nice shoes and things. No, I’m talking about a generalised thing, my father didn’t look like other fathers all the time, you know, he’d have a bit more of a smarter suit. But that was a generalised thing, if you know, the chap worked in the insurance office, the son was gonna work in the insurance office and wear the same, the appropriate clothing to go to work every day in an insurance office. And then funnily enough, it was quite a strong thing, ‘cos they might have been a Teddy boy for five minutes, but when he come at sixteen to go and get a job in the insurance office or wherever it might be, they knuckled down. The pressure on ‘em was to knuckle down. And course you see, then they get married, put a girl in the family way at nineteen and get married, it was different, it was different. Knuckle down, you know what I mean.

But, if that was the experience of your friends, I mean what was your father’s expectations of you, as regards work and you know?

I don’t know, I don’t think he had a formulated – he wasn’t sort of there, you know, it was you know, hadn’t a great big strong family tradition of going into sort of a profession or anything like that. I suppose he hoped you’d do something. I mean mostly people do, most people haven’t got the pressure on but they just hope that it all works out alright, families. Some people are very, very interested in their children and how they, what happens to them. They always love their children, but there are degrees of interest in their children. Even people with a, might be very wealthy and they’re not quite so interested, others who are very poor and they push and push and push them into good school, into university, push and push and push, they devote their life to it, which is a very admirable, fantastic thing. But I wasn’t brought up in a background of that. Sometimes it goes wrong, that of course, well wrong. I’ve seen that happen. Pushed and pushed and pushed until it’s all gone, it doesn’t work out absolutely at all, what they expected to work out.

But for you, there wasn’t that kind of pressure?

Not really, no. No.

[Track 15]

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I mean I left that school and I went to Goldsmiths College of Art actually, after that. I went there. But I think it come, there was no great pressure or direction or anything like that, no. Perhaps it would be nice if there was a little bit more, but there you are.

I mean, how did they, what was their attitudes, your parents’ attitude towards your education?

They were great believer, they wouldn’t, there was at one stage, I was gonna go to St Dunstan’s, I think there’s St Dunstan’s College in, that’s in south east London, like a private, fee-paying school. But my mother wouldn’t have it, ‘cos she thinks it was wrong to do that and you know, you’ve got to do, you have the ability the same as everybody else and try to do it that way. She didn’t see it as a, she didn’t agree with it.

So in a sort of ideological way she didn’t?

Yeah, in a, funny enough, you know slightly.

So, when you talk about…

And I probably wouldn’t have liked it, fitted in anyway, so she probably thought that as well, so you know.

But, on reflection, you’ve talked about the resentment that you do have towards the Catford school. What d’you think it was – was it a good school, was it a…?

Well, not really. It didn’t bring the best out, you know. A few people who bring the best if you fitted the bill, if you was the norm. I felt slight resentment there from certain teachers. Maybe I’ve got wrong, but you know, whatever. I told you, the history guy sent me up for the – he said I’d been cheating when I hadn’t. All that kind of thing. You were expected to be on a certain level and it was hard for you to rise above that level because they would, they just wouldn’t believe it, you know. And maybe the level I – and then of course, what it did to me, made very lazy and uninterested and a dunce, because I couldn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 150 C1046/12/15 care less. It sort of took the spark out of me. I would say that, it took the spark out of me about thirteen and fourteen years old, it took the spark out of me and I didn’t bother after that.

What was your teachers’ reaction to you altering your uniform for example?

Well it was quite subtle. It would take them a while to notice it and you didn’t flagrantly you know, wear a sort of, cut your school blazer in half or something, you know you subtly changed. But you could see the change and then they could and I suppose all the boys and they think, oh well, part of growing up. I don’t think there was a great big outcry. You had to wear a school, the school cap and things, you had to wear a blazer and you had to wear a tie and you had to wear grey trousers and you had to wear black shoes. But if you done subtle changes to all these items, you could kind of get away with it.

And you said, but you didn’t have the hair for the DA?

No, I didn’t have the right hair, no. Which was annoying, ‘cos I’d like to have had the right hair.

Could you sort of give us a portrait of how you looked at that point?

Perfect sight I would have thought. Sort of short - I was quite small – round, grey trousers, narrow bottoms, black shoes that were shined but then didn’t bother, so they would have probably not been shined at all for about three months. I think the white shirt, the school shirt had a biggish collar so I think I went and got, found myself another white shirt with a little tab collar. Thin tie, the school jacket, well you couldn’t do much about that. And I suppose that’s about all the alteration I think you could actually make really. Can’t think of anything else?

And what was your hairstyle like?

.Mm?

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What was your hairstyle like?

Well I could never do hairstyles because I didn’t really, it was just ordinary mousey- coloured hair and he didn’t do anything, so there was never much, the hairstyle side of life really passed me by in a way. I don’t think you could have a shaven head or anything. Well my father wouldn’t have tol… you know, a parent wouldn’t have tolerated that. I think one boy come in about fifteen with a Mohican – you know, he’d shaved his head, but I don’t think he was allowed into school till his hair grew again. That was extreme. I think that was a talking point of like eight hundred thousand youngsters across south London that was, you know. That was a famous incident. A boy would have been famous for it. He had a Mohican. Came to school with that. Well that would cause [sharp intake of breath], you know. Disbelief, had no comprehension of it. Perhaps he’s done it for religious reasons or the parents are maniacs or something, you know, you couldn’t conceive of, an older person couldn’t conceive of it. Inconceivable. Perhaps he was gonna go in the army and decided halfway through not to cut all the hair off or something, you know, whatever.

When you did your alterations to your uniform, would it, why did you…

Do it?

Well, ‘cos I liked style and conscious of style. You know, I always been interested in it. You wanted to – course, there was a bit of kudos attached to it as well, people come there and sort of measure the bottoms of the trousers to see how tight you got away with. I had thick ankles which was unfortunate, if you had long legs and thin ankles you could even have tighter trousers and look better. So if you got shorter, thicker legs, it’s never quite the, the silhouette isn’t as good of course, you know.

That silhouette that you’re talking about, was that influenced by – I think on our first recording you mentioned the American style that was around.

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Yeah. No, I was just always think of fashion sometimes as, style as a silhouette, it’s a you know, it’s a shape. You know, I’m not say, a thirteen and a half year old child walking about thinking about dandyism and silhouettes, I wasn’t that. Always quite aware of what’s going on, the latest trends, of course.

Would there have been magazines or newspapers that…

Well I did used to write, yeah, I used to write to someone, a penpal in America, a girl who lived in Brooklyn and she’d send me kind of catalogues of the shops, the stuff that they sold in the shops and things down there. That was big time, that was kids, that was grab it in your hands and look at it and studied it, we studied it until it all fell apart in the end, you know. So many flicking of the page to look at it. I remember that, yeah. So I was kind of aware of all that. [interruption] I want it all back.

So, I mean we were talking about how you looked…

How you looked, lovely.

…at the age of say fourteen.

Yeah, then fifteen, different, change, all change again at fifteen and a half, bohemian. Then bohemian. No more Teddy boy. Nineteen, let’s have a think… by 1957 totally forgotten, that was all gone in my head, all that and now I was a bohemian. The Beat Generation. The Beats. Well no actually, not the Beats, that was a little bit later, Modernism and all that. But bohemia; artists, splash a load of paint over my jeans, rip the sleeves off my jacket, try and grow my hair a bit longer, trad, traditional jazz clubs, dancing four times a week, staying out all night at the weekend up London, all night jazz clubs. That’s what it, suddenly changed like that, by fifteen and fifteen and a half, totally changed.

So…

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Bohemia. A lot of kids, Modernism. They all grew out of that, you know. You suddenly, you didn’t want rock ‘n’ roll, you wanted to listen to jazz records and things and maybe a bit of skiffle – ‘cos that was another thing – and skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll and then I was very interested in blues and all those things. So I was sort of like Mick Jagger at fourteen in Dartford or whatever, you know, it was, you know, anyone a bit aware would be the same sort of brain going on.

So it sounds like some dramatic changes happened?

Just ‘cos of kind of picking up on new things. Suddenly we didn’t want rock ‘n’ roll, but we’d go and look through the jazz records. And then the dancing and trad was a big thing, but it’s, trad jazz was a bit later and I was before that. And then I’d kind of go to, I’d go to Chislehurst Caves, you know, traditional jazz band. Ken Colyer’s in, just off of Leicester Square and there was loads and loads of these clubs and it was a big thing, trad, dancing. No – don’t know about that? No.

Well, could we sort of trace how you became that kind of person from where you were? I mean…

I think I got interested a bit in art and you know, ‘cos I liked the thought of it. You know, it would spring from… ‘cos sixteen, I was quite young when I went to art school, I was only sixteen. But I think it started before that. There was a couple of other young men, boys who were interested in that kind of life and I think I had a scooter at the time as well. And you could, you was more mobile. That means I could go over to Chislehurst Caves and there’d be a bit of a Saturday night dance, you know, dance. And the girls of course, ‘cos you’re more interested in girls then, that maybe had a lot to do with it. And the girls were these sort of, you know, you’d jive, trad jazz jiving and dancing and the clothing. It was just a total change, really.

Can we go back slightly though?

Go on then.

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[laughs] When you were talking about your appearance and you said you were sort of short and round and so on, it reminded me of last time when your mother you said was annoyed about your sort of, your appearance.

I think she always was a bit, mm.

But how did you feel about how you looked?

Well I suppose you’d sort of go on these diets a bit and things like that and then – I was kind of funny, I kind of got away with it a bit. You know, a lot of kids you know, the stout girl in the corner or the boy… I wasn’t like that, I always joined in and I kind of got away with it a bit. But if I hadn’t got away with it so much, perhaps I would have been different about it. I think it’s made me a stronger person… I don’t know what it was, but I kind of got away with it a bit.

So d’you think it did have an effect on your personality?

It probably would do, yes. It probably would do, I would have thought, mm.

And when you were talking about the kudos that you got from sort of the clothes that you wore and so on, could you sort of reflect on your status amongst your friends?

Er, well I’ve never been one to dwell too much on my status. You know, I’m not that kind of person really, you might think it, but I’m not really. I kind of, I always had a little bit of status I suppose because I was quite quick on changing an image or being on the latest fashion or style. Also I suppose my parents were quite, my father was quite liberal and that helped as well, that I could go to, I went to school with tight trousers and things, other children couldn’t. Perhaps that helped. He was in that business a bit, so you know, he was kind of aware of looks. My mother was always kind of quite fashionable. Although they didn’t, none of them would have thought bohemianism was fashionable. That, people who make mothers cry, that when kids go out with a splat of paint over their trousers and things, that was a terrible thing. But, and then it was the lifestyle, I suppose it was looking to America a bit, like every youngster with any kind of imagination would have done. You

Tommy Roberts Page 155 C1046/12/15 didn’t look really to France, you know. France a teeny weeny bit, but you looked to America really, and the Beat Generation. You know, records. And course, by the time I was seventeen, I’m into modern jazz, I’m not looking even at - trad jazz lasted a certain time, then I’m looking at kind of West Coast modernism or something in the shops when I’m looking at records.

You…

Then it was back to style of course, with modern… you know, then it was more to do with style. I suppose to most, you know, it was like, most people it was, bohemian was an unsightly object, you know, to the ordinary person. Like New Romantics I suppose with Boy George. As he said, you know, people would think, they don’t see the style, they just see like a Coco the Clown in front of them. Do you know what I mean, they don’t see a style, but if you’re a style you knew there was something in it. Again, it’s sort of, most people, the ordinary person, the Norman Normals would never, could never see it, so that’s made it, always makes it better doesn’t it, for the likes of me.

You linked it to girls – were you interested in girls before the bohemian stage came along?

Maybe a bit, but not much luck. It got a bit better when I got to the bohemian stage. And I had a scooter to go round in and things and sort of life blossomed a bit more then, you know.

When it came to girls, had your parents ever had any kind of discussion with you?

No, no, no not at all. No. [laughs] No not at all. Nothing like that, no. In fact if I brought a girlfriend home it would give my mother the needle, she’d be angry. ‘What’s that girl doing?’ I remember a girl, bedroom, quite innocently really, to play a record, quite innocently. ‘What are you doing?’, you know, and she really didn’t like it, no. Didn’t like it. Didn’t like it. Then you hear things like, well if you go on like that you’ll end up like Lenny Bellat [ph] up the road who’s had, you know, you got to get married at seventeen or something, you know, whatever. So I didn’t want any of that, no. It was a

Tommy Roberts Page 156 C1046/12/15 big thing, of course, girls, you know. I mean it wasn’t till later that it was different, but then it was a big scene, you know. Kissing was a bit, quite sort of serious. [laughs]

So how did you sort of learn what you were doing?

Trial and error and you pick up things via other people, like most people do and probably still do to this day, you know. You know, you don’t get a medical journal out to study it, do you? There was lessons at school about biology and things, but it was rather kind of like birds and bees level really.

Can you remember your first date?

No. No. I don’t think I can do that. I remember kind of quite a couple of earlier dates, yes, yes. Going to the youth club and meeting someone and liking them and getting over excited and taking them home on the scooter and seen ‘em once or twice, and then didn’t want to see ‘em any more and then suddenly, wished you had seen them and then they’d found someone else and gone off and you was annoyed ‘cos you didn’t see – whatever, you know, all that kind of thing. Getting upset of course, you know, upset. You’re the, you know, you’re flavour for about two or three and then next time you ring up you’re not wanted, you know. Somebody else has come on. But that’s life, you know that’s life. Course you remember those things.

So, if you were going out with a girl, how would you prepare, how would you get ready before going out?

Well I think you’d make an effort. Depends, if she was, liked the traditional jazz music or whatever, I mean you’d try and put some, like a pair of corduroy trousers on and the jumper and look in that style. Try and be cocky a bit, know all the obscure records and you know, bring along a record of, I don’t know, Bix Beiderbecke or someone like that, a bit more than the norm and try to make an impression really. I suppose. That’s what you would do, wouldn’t you?

So, you would…

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Try to impress them really.

So you’d have worn corduroy trousers?

Yeah, I think I had a pair of corduroy trousers.

And what else?

Dark green corduroy trousers. I had a suede jacket with no arms in it, I always remember that. I took the arms off to make it like a sort of jerkin. Oh, I used to really go to town actually. I used to buy them granddad shirts with no collar that you could buy in the market, for a shilling or something, and I dyed one green, I dyed the shirt bright green and I wore a stiff collar with it, a white collar. So I had a green shirt, white collar, green corduroy trousers. Then I used to buy the, and I used to go up to London and buy these sort of boots in Anello and Davide which is a shop that sells ballet clothes, and shoes, and they used to do little sort of bright suede coloured little bootees, and I remember going and buying a bright blue pair, which was extraordinary at the time. Wearing them on my feet. So it kind of, that was a bit extreme for even then, that was extreme, you know. I had been asked to leave the bus and that, it was too shocking to be you know, mix with the general public and things. My father would say, you know, ‘God almighty’ you know, ‘Goodness gracious, don’t go out…’ ‘You’re not going out like that are you?’ He wouldn’t go out the door with me, you know. He’d go out before me [laughing], he was so ashamed of me.

It sounds like you must have been quite confident to wear these clothes?

I must have been, or trying to be – not confi… I don’t think I was confident, funny enough. I think it was a way of going against being confident. You know, you wanted to go to the other extreme. I don’t think I was that confident actually. And I think it was a way of combating it by going extreme. So you know, so wherever you went was, caused a furore. I remember, you know, I’d wear my mother’s jacket and things like that and she had an old coat and I’d take it and I’d wear that, a swing back jacket and – all funny bits of clothing I’d wear. And later on when I had a job I could go and get a pair of trousers made in a

Tommy Roberts Page 158 C1046/12/15 great big tartan check and things. Really kind of extreme for the time. Later on, it’d become more like you know, but then it was extreme. Extreme.

So…

Like my mother’s friend would come, another woman, and she’d say well your son obviously needs psychiatric help and things like that, ‘cos I’d been wearing this clothing.

Really?

It was such a shock to them, you know. I can remember that being said.

So, being shy…

I suppose they thought that perhaps I was gonna, I was some sort of raving sexual deviant on the, growing up or something. I don’t know, ‘cos they wouldn’t understand it you see, wouldn’t understand it. My father kind of did a bit and that, a little bit, but he didn’t always like that, but there was a time when – I’d be stopped by the police and things, because it was too extreme walking about. I was in an all night jazz place in London, there was only one or two you could go to anyway, and then I’d go and maybe think I’ll get the – then I’d maybe go to Woolwich ‘cos there was, they used to have a sort of, in the early evening they used to have a dance there and then I’d maybe go to the Embankment and hang about and get a train there and I remember often being stopped by the police, what are you doing? And I’d have a bag and they’d say, what you got… well nothing really, an old jacket with no sleeves. And he said, well, something and when he opened it, they were really angry, one in fact hit me. He was saying, what are you walking about like this for, you disgraceful thing and everything, you know. Yeah, I remember that. It was a shock. People had done it before, like Quentin Crisp and people had been doing it, you know, it wasn’t… but it was that kind of extremity.

And yet that didn’t put you off?

Pardon?

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It didn’t put you off though?

No. In the end it does, ‘cos you have to conform a bit don’t you, but I did go through this stage. Then I went to art school where people, it was more acceptable wasn’t it? People of the same ilk, doing the same thing. Although, I was young there, most of them were much older. You know, chaps had been in the army, had come out wanting to do a teacher training course in art, blokes with a big beard and things, you know. You know they were probably, I was sixteen, they were probably nineteen to twenty-six years old, the other people at the art school. But I seemed to get in, I got in there young. For some reason he said I could go to the art school.

But when you left Catford School for Boys, did you have qualifications?

Not much, no. I funked it all really. I think I had a few GCEs; English I think, art, religious instruction I think for some reason, I was always quite interested in that. Few bits and pieces, but nothing of any note, no.

And at that…

It was enough to get me into the art school.

So was that your decision, to go to art school?

Yeah, I wanted to go to art school. You know, and they had a few places and I went, then I went for the interview and took work that I’d done and he accepted me. Which was all I – my mother always was a bit suspicious of it. I think she thought it was just excuse for a sort of larking about or something, which it was a bit. I mean the older ones, they were more committed, but I wasn’t, I was there for a good time, you know.

Were you?

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Well I was [laughs], you know. I never made many friends there, again, ‘cos I keep saying it, they were all older really, a bit. But I you know, there was – oh I used to do the thing, you know, class in illustration, art history. It was very good to go, it gave you a good grounding, made my scope of the world much wider, it was a very good thing to do. I thought, because it did sort of open my eyes to other, a lot more things in life, it broadened my spectrum of seeing things and whatever. Architecture and things you would never have thought twice about.

Can you remember your first impressions of Goldsmiths?

Going in this big sort of hall and going up to class and – no, I can’t remember the first day. But it was different, it was certainly different from being at school, people were just drifting in over about a fortnight, and things. Then there was a shop, then we went and bought – you know, it would be said, well you’ll need a sketchpad, a this and that, so I remember buying all the bits. My mother gave me four pound or two pound to buy all the bits, so I bought the bits and life class, this class and – that was quite, you know, like somebody in the nude you had to draw them, the life class and things, it was all kind of new experience.

How did you sort of react to that first experience?

Well you do, you don’t sort of look, you know, it was quite sort of, you just know – well I suppose you’re not used to it, and then of course it’s only about ten minutes and you’re very much used to it. Talking to the person who’s got no clothes on, getting the woman a cup of coffee, you’re not thinking twice about it. That’s what it was.

What was the life studio like?

Just a big room. It had those plaster busts of classical figures that they always had in these art schools where you have to copy them, these kind of Greek sculpture, Roman sculpture, but a plaster… on plinths, these kind of sculptures. They were there to be copied or – by then, nobody did ‘cos it had moved on from then, but obviously a thing that had been in this place since the 1930s when it was built or something.

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And how was the course sort of structured over the time that you were there? Can you remember the sort of, what you were doing in the first year?

No. I think you did painting, you did sculpture – I quite liked the sculpture. Then you did sort of, you could do technical drawing if you wanted, but I didn’t want to, I wasn’t disciplined enough to do that. But then there was illustration, there was drawing classes. I can’t think after that what other things, but they would last probably a morning, you know, and then you’d go and then you would go to the canteen and have a coffee and a roll with the other people and then I think you packed up about four o’clock…

[End of Track 15]

[Track 16]

That was you know, it did. Sometimes in the evening, they’d do – I can remember making something for a – they usually have dances and things which was quite interesting, and you might make something for a float or you know, a kind of 1920s – I think we did a Keystone Kop once where we built an old car, and things like that, you know.

For a sort of social thing, was it?

I did. Mostly the pub, actually. Mostly go into a pub in the evening. Then I – oh I had a friend there who was obsessed with cowboys and I was a bit obsessed with cowboys and we’d go off, if there was a cowboy film on we’d go in the cinema and sit and see that. And we’d dress a bit like cowboys, but there was a stage of dressing like sort of west, you know, with a kind of black frock coat and striped trousers and sort of black boots and – you couldn’t wear a big stetson ‘cos you couldn’t buy one – but like a hat and that was a bit… Then we’d have a gun belt and these toy guns, but we would actually, spent hours kind of rubbing down and making it look very realistic and things like that. But he was obsessed with it all, this fellow. And then we used to have quick draw, go in the park and have quick draw – I mean this is going, this is not kids, this is like seventeen year old men, you know, have quick draw competitions and who could draw the gun the fastest and

Tommy Roberts Page 162 C1046/12/16 things, yeah. [laughs] I remember that, yeah. But this guy was really into it, he was more obsessed than I was, whole life was that, you know.

What happened to him?

I don’t know what happened to him. Just went, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to him. Then there were someone quite… who’d actually been to Japan and I thought that was very unusual at the time. He’d actually spent two years in Japan on a scholarship, this fellow. And he was quite interesting. People like that, your sphere being a south-east London school, you would never have met and it opened your eyes up. And you think you’re quite good at painting, then you see people who are like, boom, you know. Drawing, draw beautiful two-second, beautiful drawing. Some people go on to the Royal College of Art or whatever. A lot of them there were training to be, do a teaching course. I did a year, what they call intermediary course. I never did the second year, I left after that. I left after that, it just, I don’t know why, I just left. My mother thought it was, I was wasting my time. She was probably right, I don’t know, and whatever.

How did you feel when you saw other people, their abilities to draw and so on?

Well, it’s quite good ‘cos it kind of gives you a broader, you realise that, you think you’re, you know, the best artist in Catford Central School or something, but you’re nothing when you go out and see other people, come from all over England, UK, abilities. Not all of them, but you always, there’s one or two spectacular ones. I thought anyway. Clever.

So how did that make you feel about yourself?

Oh I wasn’t jealous of… no, I didn’t have that in me to be, you know, I just thought it was you know, just makes you aware, it’s a good thing for you ‘cos you’re aware of what is out there. Perhaps you think oh well I’d better concentrate on something I am good at. You know, Barry, one of these guys was a friend and I got friends with him; he was good, he was clever. But, now it just shows you those times, he had a girlfriend and they got married when they were seventeen – there was something… But he’d been, the mother of this girl caught them in bed. I suppose he was just, he was seventeen and she was – but

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Toni wasn’t sixteen, she was just, she was still fifteen – the mother made sure the police come and he had to go to prison. Seventeen year old boy. And when he got out of prison they got married anyway, but he had to go to prison.

For how long?

Six months. Whether they were doing anything, I don’t know, but you know. The mother said, they was in bed, you know, whatever and you know, those days I bet he’s… don’t know, you know, you weren’t allowed, you know it’s against the law, that’s the end of it. Lots of things like that against the law. Yeah. Yeah. I always remember that. I thought that was, even then I thought that was a shocking thing really. He was a real innocent sort of fellow, you know. ‘Cos it’s always them sort of innocents, it’s like in the war innit, it’s always them sort of innocent blokes who get shot for being a deserter and really they’ve only gone off for the weekend to see their mum or something. Not crafty, not cunning, not you know, dodgy, but just a sort of innocence. They’re always victims. Don’t know what, talking just brought it in my head. Something I haven’t thought about for years. Really nice he was, very clever and nice.

And yet he still married her?

He married her, yeah, yeah, yeah. He married her, oh yeah. He wanted to. That didn’t make any difference in it though, prison.

So, you talked about the bohemian style, and what were the things that you were looking at, where you sort of found out about this look?

I think it might have come from the music. Skiffle groups. Lonnie Donegan’s Rock Island Line record and – it probably come from that originally, the music. You’d buy a couple of records, seventy-eight records of you know of – then you might buy a jazz record. You’d get in at skiffle to traditional jazz. Then I think I went to a, they used to have a jazz club, they say Woolwich, another place in Woolwich, the Armstrong Gun public house, probably not there any more, on the first floor this fellow used to run a jazz club and we used to go round there and you’d do like jiving and dancing as part of it.

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Dancing was a strong element of it of course. You know, I liked the dancing and I was good at it. And then you’d hear more records and then you’d go somewhere where they would have a live band and then you gradually got into it. And I had another friend I’d go with and we’d go on our scooters and whatever and, yeah. There was two or three or four in south London, you know, Cy Laurie’s, a few, a couple in the West End and that was a bit more – but then again it was like the art, you know, you think you’re the bee’s knees and then guys got records, you’d never even heard of the people. Much more advanced and you suddenly get another level of it all. Fantastically dressed, fantastic clothing and stuff. And you really start… you know, again you think well I aspire for that now, don’t you? And that makes you think, oh I want to do that.

What was the clothing?

Well it’s to do – I don’t know particularly, it was just… I mean I was impressed with a guy, he bought an old pair of army trousers, those tight officer ones with the red stripe down them and they were really… and they had elastic underneath, elastic thing and a long pair of sort of pointed kind of, I think they were, you know they used to wear these things called desert boots. Like you’d go to a army surplus shop and buy bits and putting it all together, you know, you make a kind of look. No, you know. You didn’t, you know, bohemian kind of – touch of the sitting outside a café on the Left Bank in Paris and a touch of American beat generation, you know, all entwined together and Bohemia, bohemian lifestyle. Admired people who didn’t do any work and got drunk all the time and stuff like that, you know. I remember someone with no money at all and somebody had a pound note and he got the pound note and there was a candle there and he twisted it up, he lit the pound note, lit his cigarette with the pound note, you know. That was the only money, any of, all, whole world. That would probably have lasted a month at art school, you know. Things like, you know, kind of batty things like that really. Drinking and used to have parties and people were drunk and, ‘cos you didn’t see much of that as young, but then you see people are drunk and that was quite interesting.

Before you said you were treated almost like an adult from quite an early age, as regards smoking…

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Yeah, yeah.

…and so on. Did that, how did your relationship with your parents sort of change in your teenage years?

I don’t know if it did really. I suppose they couldn’t quite, I think it started to annoy my mother. She did believe in you going, having a proper job and this bohemianism and not doing anything – and that’s why she cut it off at the art school, she ended that when I was, I suppose I was seventeen I suppose. I was there a year or whatever, you know. And she said you’ve got to get a job and don’t come back unless you, you know, I had to go out the house with half a crown’s worth of fare money to look for work, you know, to go and get in the paper, ring up and go for an interview. You know, I think she thought I was going on the slippery slope of kind of – she didn’t understand it really. She was probably right.

What was your financial situation? Had you had a Saturday job or something like that?

No, I had a job when I was fifteen in the school holidays. Work is horrible, something I really detest, they used to make furniture, which is something I’m afraid I hated, I had to mix the glue or something like that. And I remember working all for a fortnight and I got two pound ten shillings for a week, and I did about a fortnight of that and I thought I can’t stand that. Bits and pieces like that, but not much. I didn’t have a paper round, I wasn’t that industrious.

Where was the place where you did the furniture?

Erith or something, I can’t remember now. Then I did a week doing carpet laying, I couldn’t bear that, I was useless at that and like holiday jobs. But I wasn’t very good for holiday jobs. But that might have been to do with self-confidence a bit, might have been a bit of that. And then…

What d’you mean by that?

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Well, perhaps I wasn’t confident enough to go out and ask for a job. [laughs] If it come through a friend, you know. And I didn’t get much money, no, I had a very small pocket money and got actually less and less for a time, my mother was really, you know. So you’d want to try and buy ten fags and you just couldn’t sort of - you’d have the ten fags or walk, or the bus and no ten… Things like that, you know, but then I suppose that’s normal isn’t it.

How was Goldsmiths? How was it funded, your year there?

Well it was an LC - London County Council thing wasn’t it, it was a teacher training college, basically. The art school was an independent thing, but it was being squeezed out ‘cos the teacher training college side of it was taking over. But course the art school come back strong didn’t it, in the eighties and all that again. Mary Quant went there. A few people went there.

Did you know anyone who was there when you were at Goldsmiths?

For now, you mean?

Yeah, somebody who…

Not really, no. I never forged any sort of friendships like that, I don’t know what happened to them. One got quite well-known, I think lasted, but I can’t even think of the name now. You know, they do these things, but like most they go and be teachers in Australia or whatever they do and you know, I haven’t got much contact, no. No. Probably do know people, if you saw them, but haven’t seen them for thirty years. Also, it wasn’t just the art, it was people’s minds. They were, you know, you suddenly realised the way you talk about government, it’s a lot of old baloney most of it and you know, you get people a bit more politically kind of motivated there, these you know, they’re older and it brings new ideas into your head that you wouldn’t normally have. It was a very good thing that I went to that thing, you know.

So, what are you referring to, what are the political sort of things?

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Well, they might have more of a – what’s the word? Cynical outlook on life than a normal young bloke. Gonna get on and get off, fresh start, gonna start off in life. It’d be like people of twenty-two who were real cynics and things [laughing] and I was quite surprised, already at twenty-two they were sort of, ‘You don’t want to do that, that’s all shit’ and you know, that kind of stuff, cynical about life. And I thought that was kind of, I didn’t really like it but I thought it was quite interesting. Yeah, ‘Don’t do that, that’s not gonna get you anywhere, that’ you know. People trying to work a way to hang on, to get grants as long as they could so they could hang this sort of life out till they were about thirty-two. They could. Then people were clever at it. You know they didn’t seem to work, obviously their work’s gonna be writing to America or writing off for a grant or applying for something. And I thought, God, all the effort they make into these things. But he said, well it means another year I can sort of sit about in the pub and all that, you know. So I thought that was, I hadn’t encountered that before.

D’you think that your sort of attitude’s changed during that year?

I don’t think basically, no. I took it on board what they said, as I say, it broadens your horizons, but I don’t think, I think I come out the same person. I wasn’t there that long enough, I was only there about ten months. You know, if I’d been there for about four years – you know, I did think, oh shall I go for the grant, you know, I could have hung it out for longer. But then I thought, oh no, I think I’ll go off and see what I can do.

So what kind of personality would you say you were at that stage?

Slightly naïve. No experience of life, not really. Thought I was quite smart, but obviously wasn’t really. Had a vague idea of interested in what was, interested in culture for young people at the time and kind of aware of it all and the music and you know, it was very limited what you was interested in, but music and art and fashion a bit. And you know, you wanted the normal things like a nice sports car and clothes, and just kind of that really and I suppose that’s where, as far as your horizons went. Certainly didn’t think about homes or getting married or anything. I mean that you know, that wasn’t in your head. And I felt I had a bit of ability to kind of further myself [laughs] in certain ways. And I

Tommy Roberts Page 168 C1046/12/16 thought I was that little bit more aware of trends and all that than others, and that. But of course the art school did also show you that a lot of people were not interested in the meaningness of it anywhere, but they were all, as I say, older and course they’d really not… There was that little bit of, two or three people, it was just the time, what was interesting at that stage was there was a couple of guys interested in sort of Elvis Presley and rock ‘n’ roll and they were painting like Elvis Presley, which is pop art, but that’s 1959 and you know, so obviously that ground, those things you take on board but they come from somewhere like art schools and all that, you realise, you know it gives you a different look on things. Yeah, there was guys painting – and like Peter Blake was doing it in Dartford or wherever, at the Royal College and you know, that was just starting, all that. Looking at your surroundings to get your art from – there was that kitchen sink thing, kitchen sink theatre, John Bratby the paintings, it was all that. It was a fifties kit… that was a new school of thought as well, you know. Painting your surround… you know, different way of looking at things. I thought that was all interesting. And that, you know that all, going to the art school made me aware of those things. You know, it’s like all them John Bratby things.

So, how were you introduced to these things?

Because, basically because they were new and fresh. That’s why I was interested in those things. Not from a… intellectual side of it, but they were new, new. I’m interested in new things. You see now, now today, youngish bloke was writing a play wasn’t he, at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea and you know, it was that about it all. It’s to do with you, it wasn’t to do with yesterday and it wasn’t to do with one’s parents or getting a job down in a bank or whatever, it was something to do with some other area.

So was it tutors or other students or…

Students, there was a couple of good students there, little bit more kind of idea. Couple of famous ones there actually.

Who would they have been?

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Eh?

Who would they have been?

But they’re kind of quite well-known. Neil Brazil. There was, who was there? A couple of artists, fifties artists who were a little bit known, were tutors there. But what I was, I knew my drawing wasn’t good enough, that’s the truth of it. I knew I didn’t have that extra magic and when I realised I didn’t have that capability, it sort of you know, instead of fighting to stay there I let it go, and whatever. And you know, I realised I didn’t have that skill, technique or talent in a way, that’s right. It’s better, I didn’t want to be in something where I’m not gonna be good at. ‘Cos nowadays it doesn’t matter, drawing, you can get away with it, it was more thing, but then you know, I think that’s what kind of thing. You just couldn’t, that line just didn’t, it wasn’t magic when you put it on the page. A Picasso drawing or something is magic. And I think that’s a kind of a, and that made me think, ah.

It sounds like you can sort of remember a certain moment almost when you…

Yeah, perhaps I can. I can. I think the new head of the school, new guy come and he said, oh the drawing, you know, you need to get that, why can’t you get the weight, you know, it doesn’t look as if you’ve got any weight to that drawing or whatever and you know, I messed about and then I… and I remember that and I thought no, I can’t do that. I can’t, you know, I can put a smudge and I can get it, looking as if it’s solid, you know, and the weight of that side of the body and you know, I knew that that magic wasn’t there. That’s right.

And how did you feel?

Oh, you know, I realised… other things. And today it wouldn’t be so, matter, but then you know, that’s why I thought well, I’ll you know, I’m gonna… But I did try to, but I was quite good at kind of commercial art in a funny way. I did kind of posters and I did, I remember doing a sign for a wine merchant’s shop. I think I got two guineas for it. It was all like a sort of abstract collage of bottles and things. I remember doing that and I kind of

Tommy Roberts Page 170 C1046/12/16 got interested in that and I did get to someone who… I tried to get into that world, but I didn’t really push it and, went for a couple of interviews and I didn’t really push it really. I think I went once and I didn’t have anything with me, you know, nothing to show.

But were you aware of people like Peter Blake and…

No, not, no you weren’t aware of that. No, no you wouldn’t be aware of that. No-one would be aware of that till 1960 or something. You know, but it often is, there’s a movement in the air but it takes, it formalises and then you think, ah, that’s it. That’s what that guy was doing, you know, and then it formulates. But had, if you’d gone to Camberwell School, not Camberwell, one of them, you might formulate earlier because it had a good te… who was into it earlier, who taught it, who was like godfather of all that for Britain was Richard Hamilton, you know, and he kind of was doing those things in 1956 and fifty-seven. And he kind of probably taught, you know, and he kind of made a movement.

But you yourself…

At the end of it all, well I say this friend’s in prison, it was dying off because of all the kitchen sink. And the other thing that made an impression of course, which I used to go to seeing these shows in London of, was American expressionists. You know, like hard- edged ones like Frank Stella and Barnett Newman was it? You know, and people like that. I know ‘em all, I have to think. Jackson Pollock of course, you know, that movement. You was very much aware of that at the time. That was really the bee’s knees in 1958, fifty-nine in an art school in Britain. Yeah, there was a lot of experimentation going on with that. Colour field stuff and things, you know. All white with one thin grey line and things like that.

So, were those artists introduced to you, their work…

Yeah, you was taught, well students, they would talk amongst theirself, they’d look at a book; there’d be a book in the library and you’d get interested in it. And who’s the other one? The American, it was a New York thing, really that. New York thing. New York

Tommy Roberts Page 171 C1046/12/16 school of that time. Yes, be interested in all that. But that had been going on in New York since the sort of early fifties really, but of course it takes – not like today with instant access, it takes, to you know, filter through takes a long time. But most people if they was a little bit interested, they wouldn’t know about all that at that time, they would only know about like French impressionists or something, or Picasso or Matisse – they wouldn’t know, you know it hadn’t kind of entered, that kind of stuff hadn’t really entered their heads really, you know. So there was quite a lot really when you think about it, wasn’t there, of interesting things. It was just before the explosion of all these things.

But how aware were you of – did you feel there was something coming?

Yeah, you do always feel that, mm. Well that’s timing. Suppose you think something’s coming and it don’t come, but it comes a bit later than you think. It’s all to do with timing. You know it’s right, but you think oh well, but it doesn’t happen, but then it suddenly happens three years after you think it’s gonna happen, you know. But you know, you feel there’s something coming. You know, it wasn’t till like 1961 that I’m aware of Andy Warhol or something, or 1960, sixty-one, you know a little bit later. Media all started didn’t it, you know, you got the Sunday Times colour supplement come out in sixty, you know. Your kind of television was more aware of it, so it started to quicken up, the pace in that time. Then late fifties, that’s when the pace started to quicken up. So you kind of, big show in New York, you might kind of look at it a week, two weeks later in the paper or magazine and you think that’s good and then you know, but before that it was a long time scale, it was different. Most people didn’t, weren’t interested in things like that anyway. Much more now, but then, young people weren’t interested really in that. Clothes and pop music was the only interest. Any really young people’s magazine was only full up with that. Didn’t have like articles about artists or anything like that, that was much you know, that didn’t come out till the eighties, all that stuff. So you kind of tried to have a you know, specialist art magazines and whatever. And then you kind of, you know, aware of like Vorticism and Dadaism and Surreal – you know, you know all about them things of course. You knew all about them things and quite liked all that, surrealist, you know, that was all kind of part of that bohemian thing. You know, painting a picture where you got like Bo Diddley playing in the background and that was all new, that was something fantastic, you know. Before that, you’ve got to remember, [sharp intake of breath] quiet,

Tommy Roberts Page 172 C1046/12/16 it’s all got to be, everything’s got to be quiet, you know. It was a different attitude and so many… that’s the attitude of someone… said that, you know, mentioned to me one day that somebody who worked at Warner Brothers films, they make the car… you know, like the Looney Tunes, the cartoon part of the film, they have their own building in Hollywood making the films, you know, the rabbit and the rest of it. And so it was all to do with like laughing and joking, but I think Jack Warner went past and he saw people like laughing, he thought they were like not doing any work, so he employed an ‘orrible sort of foreman bloke in there and laughing and joking was not allowed, in a place where all the money come from people laughing and joking, you know, that was the mindset there. You know, he said it’s a place of employment, not a place of enjoyment, you know. But of course, the whole building was only there for people to be laughing, to put it, draw it and make funny cartoons and things. But it’s different brain. What I call, it was called the old school then, you know, you went to work, it’s not… people saying now, Mr Roberts, you know, this is not a place of enjoyment, and that you know. And of course you couldn’t wear a, you had to be careful with dress going to work. They wouldn’t put up with, you know, you had to be very conventional dressed to go to work, unless you worked on a barrow down the market, you might wear a funny hat…

[End of Track 16]

[Track 17]

…or something, but you know, if you wanted a job you know, you had to toe the line.

So, when you left art school and you had to sort of think about…

Doing something.

…some kind of job…

Mm, what did I do?

Mm.

Tommy Roberts Page 173 C1046/12/17

Oh, different jobs. Worked in Regent Street selling sort of – American firm, funny firm actually, they used to make, they were called Community Plate and they were kind of a religious American [laughs], out the way, I don’t know where it all goes on, one of those places in Connecticut or somewhere, they made silver plate cutlery sets. It was Community Plate, because it was a community. And they were one of those, the actual background, I never really, was like a very sort of, they were like Quakers or something, and it was called Community… very strange, well America is strange like that, all funny things like that, you can’t believe half of it. And I worked for this firm and, I only worked for a while, but it was quite nice, the people but I was supposed to, well I don’t know, to keep the stockroom tidy and I was sort of treading the stuff underfoot in the end, I was so bored. So you know, funny jobs like that that one gets. Working in a horrible factory for two weeks, month, two months, I can’t think. All different things, but I didn’t hold a job, I couldn’t hold a job down really, no. Then I did a bit of window dressing, that’s right. I used to go in, go round, me and my friend we’d do local sort of dress shops and things, do their window, do an autumn window, this window. And I think we’d get like three guineas for doing a window. Once a month, and little things like that.

How did you get into that?

Well we just went and asked would they like a, you know, would they like an Easter window. And I got, cut out a big Easter egg and try and make a fluffy duckling or whatever and drape out a few autumnal leaves and put a bit of, a few skirts laid over a log and, d’you know what I mean? And, oh that’s Easter, that’s autumn I’m talking about now, but autumn, a few twigs in a… drape a few cardigans over it and try and make a, you know, like a window. And I quite liked doing that. I think actually we got five guineas for doing that or something, me and my friend. And then one day he took the five guineas and I didn’t get my half of it and he run off and so that was the end of that little escapade. We used to have escapades like that, things like that always used to go on. Trying to think what else went on.

What were the shops that you did the windows for?

Tommy Roberts Page 174 C1046/12/17

Well, like Eve’s, Eva’s – what they used to madam shops. You know, Eva’s dress shop in Blackheath Village and Prunella’s, Prunella – what did they used to call them words… I can’t think of their name. Names like from magazines, like Vogue, they might call theirself Vogue, or they might call theirself… memory’s gone. Well they had funny names, didn’t they, like that. I can’t think, these kind of funny, kind of Frenchified odd names. Boutique wasn’t, you never heard the word boutique, that was before that. But sort of local places would have these shops in these kind of Sevenoaks or something, and whatever. I think we did two or three of these things. Christmas window and a thing and a – I think once we did a Christmas window and all the bloody thing all fell down and I got all caught up in all the tinsel and ripped the bloody skirt in half or underwear hanging up or something terrible, and my friend, he run off and left me amongst it all to try and straighten it. That and the two pound fifty, I think that was the end of that business. Then there was a business making anoraks, children’s anoraks, it was a new thing. But we made a, we got somebody to make these anoraks, got a bit of money together, padded anoraks. But of course, being inexperienced, we made the hoods too small. So, ‘cos child’s got a big head and you know, it’s as big as the actual anorak, the hood, it’s big, but they were all too small. And so that was a mistake, so we made about a hundred of them, we had to try and sell them in the market and get our money – you know, escapades really, but not proper work. Not proper work, no.

When you tried to sell the anoraks in the market…

My mother said, well you have to provide, you know, you have to pay two pound a week to live, you know, to live here. Bring in some money, and all that. On and on and on and I kind of did one week and not for three and you know, I was never very good at that, I’m afraid. There must have been other things, must have been lots of things, I can’t think what they were.

When you were in the market, were you a salesman?

In what way?

When you were trying to get rid of the anoraks?

Tommy Roberts Page 175 C1046/12/17

We had to be, we made these anoraks for a customer and they were no good, or someone. I think we made ‘em for a market stall and he said look boys, these anoraks, doesn’t fit, the hoods are too bloody small. Oh, d’you want ‘em for half price and all that, no don’t want them, no good. So we had to sort of fly pitch and try and sell these anoraks to passers by. I think it was near Christmas and we sold quite a few and then, what the rest of them, I don’t know. Sold to someone for a pound, whatever. But that was a disaster, we did that.

What was your sort of patter to the…

I can’t think really. It would have been very basic and not very clever at all. Roll up, roll up kind of level of affairs, you know. And I think we did it with Christmas paper, that’s another one. We appeared with some Christmas paper and it was all kind of stuck to each other, so when you went to get these sheets, it was all kind of half – oh! Disastrous thing. What else did we do? Must have lasted a long time. Oh, that’s right, then my mother decided to open a café in Lewisham. Phew! Got so much. And that was quite interesting. So I wanted to do the interior décor of it. So I decided to call it The Kabbalah, which is now quite fashionable, but that’s the name of it, which I used to call it ‘cos I was interested in all that kind of thing at the time. I used to go to séances and things like that. ‘Cos I now realise it’s absolute poppycock the whole lot of it, but you, sometimes it takes you a while to realise that. Absolutely nothing in none of it, none. Film stars doing it, whatever, it’s all a waste of time, money and effort. Most of ‘em are charlatans, well most aren’t, most believe it theirself who are doing it, but there is nothing in it at all. There is nothing of any value or kind of mind improvement or knowledge to be gained from it. It’s all, most of it’s poppycock invented in the eleventh century, the fifteenth century by people and it’s all built up into great big slabs of this stuff and they all believe it today, you know. They’re all walking about in special uniforms, whatever, they’re kind of… Whirling Dervishes or kind of very orthodox Jewry, you know what I mean, Jewish, it’s all kind of invented in the seventeenth century and sixteenth century and you know, it’s all kind of, all that stuff that people spend their life believing and deeply believe in it, it must give them something, I suppose they get a sense of well-being out of it and whatever, but I kind of know it’s, nothing in it in the long run. [laughs] That’s great fun in the middle, I don’t know what got me going on about all that for, but you know. But anyway, we got

Tommy Roberts Page 176 C1046/12/17 involved in all this séances and things and my friend got so frightened, he had his bed in the middle of the room and he had a big circle round it, to keep the Pan away at night, in case he appeared, so he’d have a magic circle drawn right round his bed. And things like that. What it does, it does affect your brain ‘cos it does make you feel funny, you, conjuring up Pan or reading books like that stupid bloke, who tried to conjure up Pan, he was a charlatan, early twentieth century. What’s his name? Jimmy Page the rock star was always a big follower. What was his name? Famous he was. Anyway.

D’you mean Crowley?

Aleister Crowley, who invent… you know, you think you’re doing something that starts from the year, you know, from prehistory and the bloke’s only invented it in 1911 and the whole fucking, the whole kind of thing about it all. Invented it all. Funny isn’t, but people don’t want to hear that and they don’t want to believe that. And they enjoy, and you’re young and it’s a new experience and you know, it’s just part of growing up and it’s quite enjoyable ‘cos the emotions keep coming, people are crying and… my mum… you know, so there’s a lot, there’s only a certain amount of angst in it and upset and they’ll enjoy it, course they enjoy it, you know. Yeah. And we got a bit crafty over it all, I remember we’d say, oh get girls back and we’d do a séance and they’d say, have you got any metal on you because it affects the waves and course the bra strap and… But you know, that’s the problem, that is the level of it all really. [laughing] D’you know what I mean, Aleister Crowley or whoever it is, is all, that’s all the level of it all. You know, that other charlatan, R D Laing, you know. Getting them poor married women with the problems round the house and trying to have it off with ‘em and things, you know. They’re all charlatans, all charlatans. Except Freud I don’t think was, ‘cos he kind of… but most of it is charlatans. They write books on it, people accept it, they do tours in America, all round the universities. Nothing. But of course, it’s a bit horrible to say the truth ‘cos people don’t really want that, they want you know, lots of things in their life, they don’t like to think it’s all, I mean not all sort of like working like ants, do we, you know, I understand that. But most of it does make you think a [laughs] little bit, when you get involved in it all. But most of it is you know, you know I don’t, you know a bloke’s dreamed up certain rituals and certain ways for people to live in the thirteenth century or fifteenth century and they’re still living… You know, I can’t see how you can believe in all that really.

Tommy Roberts Page 177 C1046/12/17

But your mother’s shop, the Kabbalah.

The Kabbalah. So anyway, so we decided on… Can I have another cup of tea?

Yes.

[break in recording]

Quite a lot of stuff here, you know.

Okay, so…

So this takes us up to the beginning of 1960 and my mother has it in her head to open a café in Lewisham. So this shop available, I think it was war damaged, I don’t think it had been anything since before the war. Anyway, my father bought it for a small sum as an investment and we decided to do it up as a café. And I was, being I was a bit at the time interested in all this sort of black magic and all this business that I’d been, you know, séances and going to Watkins bookshop in Bloomsbury and all this kind of nonsense, that I decided to call it Kabbalah. And then I had, there was this sort of stonework, decided to do a range of what they called sort of, I think they called it mediaeval stonework or something, so wallpapered in that. Had some refectory tables all made and then the guy who made ‘em hit them all with chains and made them look sort of mediaeval, antique. And then we put a portcullis over the bar, hanging down as if it was a portcullis, and it was rather good the interior. And I think carpet. Then downstairs, we did the same thing and I had this friend Barry who I mentioned earlier, he did me a fantastic mural of like, I think it was Botticelli or something – Venus, one of the… he kind of copied that in a sort of modern style and we had that as a painting on the back wall and off we went. And my mother run it in the daytime as a sort of café for – not working man’s café, but like the local businesses, they’d come in and have a, I think she’d do a sort of, she had a chef and they’d do a omelette and, a mixed herbs omelette and chips and garni and that kind of thing and chicken in the basket and all those kind of things at that time. But in the evening I’d take it over and I’d have a jazz club downstairs and I’d open it as a coffee bar. It was

Tommy Roberts Page 178 C1046/12/17 the coffee bar era, ‘cos there was a few coffee bars around and then it was the Kabbalah coffee bar and they’d all come out after the jazz clubs and I had ‘em all queuing outside for coffees and a rum baba cake and a expresso coffee, which was ninepence – I always remember that. And I’d have a Gaggio expresso machine and I was good at that and it was, downstairs we’d have jazz going on, a guy, we’d have this trio, jazz trio and it was really kind of, kind of perked up the whole of south London, of Lewisham. And that was very good, interesting people come and made friends and that. That went on for a while till my mother got fed up with that, she lived upstairs and she didn’t like… and then she sort of didn’t like it any more and we had to sell it, and my father sold it, which I was upset about ‘cos I really liked it, but I wasn’t allowed to continue there.

So, when you said that you ran the café…

Yes, I did. I ran it myself, in the evenings. With help, but it was busy, you know. It was a coffee bar, like 1960 coffee bar. And the best one in the area and after they might have a rock ‘n’ roll show at the Odeon in Lewisham or the Gaumont in Lewisham on Sundays and they’d all come across and have an expresso coffee and a baklava and oh a hamburger, we used to do hamburgers. I had, a little hamburger machine that I had, I used to make the hamburgers. And downstairs we used to go on quite late at night. Close the shop and have jazz playing, had quite good people, I think even Bill Wyman used to come down, play guitar and all kind of quite interesting people – Long John Baldry – and we used to have a little jazz club going on down there, till about two in the morning.

How did you organise that side of it, the music side?

Well, it just kind of, I think we, I knew an estate agent actually who was a jazz pianist but also decided he was an estate [laughing] agent as well as a jazz pianist and he’d have friends and friends come and they used to jam and I said, will you come down, play Sunday nights and Saturday nights and they come and play and friends come and it was kind of quite exciting. But it all got a little bit out of hand, it was late at night and there was a little bit of trouble, one or two instances of people shouting and screaming outside and I think somebody told the police that it was a bit unruly and my father promptly put – well I think we run there for about six months and then he put the stop to it all. It wasn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 179 C1046/12/17 my first experience of that kind of thing, ‘cos me and friend had done a thing in Lewisham – and believe this or not, his father was an undertaker [laughs], he was an undertaker, we did it in the basement of the undertakers. I don’t think he knew ‘cos he lived upstairs and we opened the Zodiac Club. And that was okay for a little while, I think it was sixpence to come in, I think it was about 1958 and we’d have a skiffle group in there and then a load of Teddy boys come, fighting and again the police and that was the end of that one. That was stopped, but I put that together, we did that then and you know, charged sixpence entrance and sold Coca-Colas and – that was one of the little escapades, the Zodiac Club. I think at the time the Telstar or first time the Sputnik went out, and that’s why it’s called the Zodiac Club. Bamboo on the walls and I think posters of bullfighters in Spain and a Chianti bottle on the table with a candle in it, you know, that kind of thing.

How did you sort of learn how to set up an establishment like that?

I don’t know, you see it, you go round, well I’d like to do that. You didn’t sort of, you just opened the basement, painted it out – I think we just painted it out colours – cleaned it all up, found some old tables and chairs somewhere, I don’t know, off the – I think there was an allotment there and somebody had this stack of chairs and we took, grabbed out the allotment the chairs, put the chairs down there, had some, bought some Coca-Colas and drinks – no coffees or anything – and a little dance floor in there and people used to pay sixpence to come in and dance and, we had a record player. Didn’t have a sound system, we’d have a record player and play records and – but again, you know I mean it, you know, had no permissions or anything, and just did it. And it didn’t last very long ‘cos the father didn’t realise it was going on, and he was an undertaker of all things. So it was – I think actually people used to sit on the sort of, I think there was a pile of sort of coffins – not people in them – but you know, ready to be – I think we used to sit on those, or something like that anyway. So it was – but it didn’t last, as I say. But that’s something we did.

Who were your first sort of customers? Were they friends or…

Friends and then people… ‘cos then we, I think I posted up a load of, on lampposts and things, I drew up a load of sort of bills. Zodiac Club, now open, this address, from six thirty, Zodiac Bar or something, and course people… I put it in… and there was a dance

Tommy Roberts Page 180 C1046/12/17 studio up the road, which some old queen used to run or something, and I think I put one outside his place but then he was the one who complained first of all ‘cos he didn’t like it. And friends, and two or three people had a skiffle group come and their friends come to listen to ‘em play and suddenly there was thirty or forty people. Then it got out of hand again with all the Teddy boys coming and rushing in and it was a big scene and wouldn’t let them in and pushing and shoving and shouting out in the street. And the father, who was upstairs, didn’t really know anything about it and he saw all these kids shouting in the street, come down and he was absolutely appalled and chucked us out and oh, it was, terrible thing. That was the end of that one.

Did you have to employ sort of bouncers or…?

Not really, didn’t in those days. Didn’t think that, didn’t think that far ahead, you know. Hope for the best, you know. Didn’t think that, it wasn’t on that level. I mean I probably started it with four quid or four pound would set us up in business or something, I don’t know.

And, did you have a sort of a sense of keeping accounts or…

Oh I think the cashbox, we used to put the shillings or something in the cashbox and Teddy boy’s big hand come from across the counter and took it and run upstairs with it, run off with it. I think that was the first, yeah. So we had a little bit of that. Accounts – oh no, no, no, nothing like that. Not a business scheme, it was just a sort of, you did it on the spur of the moment. And as the Kabbalah, I mean and then it was, we did that but that was a bit more professional of course. But that kind of got, as I said, it was too many people and there was a couple of complaints and that was put a stop to and it was sold. But I liked that and I was a bit upset about that, but still. My mother said, oh we’re not having any of, you know, can’t have this any more, and that’s it.

You described yourself as quite a…

People still remember that Kabbalah, bit of folklore that, people of my generation, people still remember that, they know about that. So it was people – what did you say?

Tommy Roberts Page 181 C1046/12/17

You said you were quite a shy character, earlier on – how did it feel to have all these people come to your…

Well I wasn’t shy then. I wasn’t shy if I was in, you know, not control but if I was, the shyness developed, the, not shyness, the insecurity, the... If I went to, say I went to go for a job interview or something, I would find that traumatic and awful and very difficult. But running a coffee bar, you know, I didn’t find it, it wasn’t that at all. And they looked to you for things and you knew people and you was on a sort of different level I suppose, I don’t know what it was. But very insecure about going for jobs and things.

But different when it was your own…

Yeah you feel, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did that. And that come to an end and then I went off to, I went off to live in Spain for a year. Oh no I didn’t, we did another place. Got that wrong. A friend of mine had a… now let me think what happened. We rented a basement in Blackheath, in Lee Green and called it the Junto, the Junta – J-U-N-T-A. Or Junto. Junta. The Hunta. Yeah, must have been Junta, you know must have come from you know, having a you know, junta, a revolution isn’t it? And then that was in a basement again. That cost a bit more ‘cos my friend had a, his mother gave him some money and we built some proper seating and had a bar a Gaggia coffee machine and a sink and you know, that was a proper laid out coffee bar. And you had your, you had an entrance and then you went down the stairs to the coffee bar. Great, good jukebox, very interesting jazz and good records on there and it looked good. Anyone who was interesting, anyone with a bit of style or whatever of that area used to love it and come there every night and hang about there for hours. And that went on for a while.

What were the records on the jukebox?

…Hits of the time. I think we had the first Beatles, when The Beatles first come out, you know, we had, I think we had a Beatles record. It must have been a little bit later then, it must have been sixty-two, sixty-one, sixty-two, this we were doing. And what other records? Friend of mine – I liked kind of jazz and that and he hated all that and he had

Tommy Roberts Page 182 C1046/12/17 kind of more kind of like, hits of the time and [sings] Sun Arise in… you know, I think it was Rolf Harris. Things like that, so it was a mixture of both elements. And anyway, it kind of, the sparky people of the area and all that, people who were into kind of art and things used to come there. And that was quite interesting.

You mentioned earlier when you were at art college, going to jazz clubs and I wanted to know what it was like inside one of these jazz clubs.

Well, depends where you was. I mean it was just couples twirling and dancing, the jiving. And a few people on the, squatting on the floor at the edges drinking the Coca – they were all teetotal. They were all no alcohol of course, these places. Drinking a, having a Coca- Cola and you come down the stairs, there’d be a cloakroom, put your coat, pay threepence to the cloakroom, pay your five shillings to go in and at the end would be the band playing and your kind of dancing, you know. Some of them you knew of, people you danced with regularly and looking for a dance partner and listen to the music and that’s what it was like. Sweaty, hot, no ventilation, but that’s how it was and you liked. Ken Colyer’s, all- nighter. You’d go in about eleven thirty or something and you stumble out about five o’clock in the morning and he was, you know – and that was off Charing Cross Road, that was. Yeah, just round the – I can’t remember the street. Then the Gyre and Gimble coffee bar at Villiers Street and that was all night, and there was places all night that you could go to. Once you knew about it, you know, you knew the whole circuit of places.

And you danced?

Not at all of them, some were just coffee bars where people played, they’d just start playing folk music or they’d play blues or whatever and you know. And some of them, because the trad jazz clubs, they played for dancing. There’s quite a few of them, it’s well documented all that, you know.

But you danced?

Yeah, yeah. I used to like dancing. Yeah, I was good. I was good at it. Yeah I used to really like it.

Tommy Roberts Page 183 C1046/12/17

Did you have a dance partner?

And I used to go three or four times a week, you know, going off. If I had the money.

Did you have a dance partner?

Yeah, always had people you sort of knew. If you could, you know, there was always a couple of people who danced quite well and most people there just sort of like do a bit of dancing, it wasn’t serious, but there was a little group, quite serious, and I was quite serious about it. So kind of serious, but you know, I used to like it. You want somebody who’s a kind of good dancer, you know, then you twirled round, you couldn’t catch their hand and they weren’t quick enough, there was no pleasure in it. ‘Cos you’d want to shine really and so you made sure you were doing all the – yeah. It was good.

And did you have a girlfriend at that point?

Not real… oh, my girlfriend I did meet there and then a thing, and fell out and whatever and yeah, little bits. Mm yeah, little bits, yeah. Didn’t sort of have like thousands of girlfriends. You might go fallow sometimes, not have any girlfriends, but… sometimes you didn’t really care, you know, sometimes you spoilt it, you didn’t turn up. It’s a bit funny, you’d want a girlfriend, when you did sort of, then you’d sort of ruin it. I don’t know what it was, it was just stupid really. And you thought it was quite, you know. And then you’d – that’s how it was. I did have a girlfriend, when I was doing the Kabbalah I had a girlfriend. Nice girl. Irish girl actually, well… ‘cos I met her at this – they used to have a dance at the Catholic Club at Blackheath and I remember meeting her there. She was rather good looking, but I think I always said, you could have been a model, this girl. She was – no she couldn’t, she was too short really, she was only five foot three, but very thin, high cheekbones, she was very, very thin. You know, nice, nice face she had, this girl. What become of her I don’t know, but we went out. We was really close for about six months.

[End of Track 17]

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[Track 18]

What was her name?

Lorraine. Lorraine Swain. Very Irish name, Swain. I remember it. Brothers. Went to the house once, I think the father didn’t like me. The grandmother didn’t like me – they were very Irish, you know, I don’t think they kind of really quite liked it really. They were very Catholic Irish, yeah. But we were fine. She was quite clever this girl, she worked in an office in Fleet Street, something to do with one of the newspapers. Not that that was a clever job, but she was a good drawer, she was quite artistic, this girl. But it would never have come to nothing, she would have married someone and all that would have been squashed and finished.

So you met at the art school?

No I didn’t, I met her, I met her at this youth, this club for sort of older teenager – where were we, in 1959 or something, eighteen year old. It was a Catholic youth club, but where I went I don’t know, but we got in, it was quite good and there was dancing and you know, meeting girls and stuff. That’s where I met her, yeah.

What about your father’s business at this stage – you said that he paid for The Kabbalah?

Yes, well I think he was doing very well. Mm.

So he still had his…

Business.

…his dress business as well?

Ties.

Tommy Roberts Page 185 C1046/12/18

Ties.

Yeah, he’d do that. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. You know, I think he was obviously quite a, you know, selling a lot of things, I think he was quite, he was successful. But then my parents fell out and that was all funny. When my mother – she lived above the coffee bar, The Kabbalah, she wouldn’t live at home, and then, so that was all funny as well, which made it a bit difficult. And then later on she went back to the house and he wouldn’t, I had to meet him in the pub, in neutral ground. All that kind of thing, you know. Yeah, ‘cos they didn’t get on.

So how did that affect you?

Well you didn’t, it did affect you, it shouldn’t ‘cos you was kind of old enough to understand it, but in those days it wasn’t that prevalent, you know. You know, people had never met a divorcee or something, they’d never met one in their lives, some woman who’d been divorced, it was ahhh. You know, a woman being… it just wasn’t acceptable. And course people tolerate horrible marriages over it for the rest of their life. Drunken husbands and stuff. Anyway, we didn’t have any of that. But they just drifted apart really. I think my father had a girlfriend, got a girlfriend, and off it went. First of the new wave, I suppose. You know, first after the war, very early sixties, late fifties, quite successful. My mother being very young and married, probably wanted some other life. You know, it was a first wave of what was to come really, in a funny way, wasn’t it? You know, it was a – unfortunately my mother died when I was twenty… so she never got… I don’t think they got divorced. No, I don’t think they got divorced, but they lived separately. Separate homes, you know, separately. I don’t think they’d get divorced. But somebody died, that was different. She died, she got cancer, young woman and died. But, it was a shame really. I think it may be the stress of it all and stuff, and that was that.

How old was she?

Eh?

How old was she?

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She couldn’t have been that old, could she? Forty-four or something, forty-three, forty- four.

So…

Forty-three I think. Possibly forty-two. But I never knew how old she was, my mother, not exactly. Never knew how old my mother was. Whether she had me at nineteen or twenty, I wasn’t sure. I think I was born when she was twenty-two. Forty-two, I think so. So it would have made her forty, forty-four I think.

Why didn’t you know when she was born?

Don’t know, she never said and you never asked. She didn’t want to tell you. Some people are funny like that. [laughs]

So, where had you been living whilst your parents were in separate homes?

Well after all these coffee bars and stuff, the other one ended up, I argued with the guy I was doing it with and there was all kind of, got all kind of out of hand with fighting and stuff, it got rough and fighting and horrible. Like most south-east, anything in south-east London in those days always did. You never do anything nice in south-east London. Perhaps you can now, but not then. It was not understood and had to be ruined. But anyway, he, we fell out and I kind of took off and I, and I think I - I was twenty-one, or maybe I was, must because I was twenty-one I got two hundred and fifty pound – which was a lot of money – for my twenty-first and I used to go to Torremolinos and Malaga with. There wasn’t a – was there a direct flight there, I don’t think there was an aeroplane, I don’t think there was a Malaga… Anyway, I went on the train and I stayed there, then I went to Tangiers and stayed there six months and I think the whole thing was about a year or something, I was away, I went, done that. Gibraltar I lived for a little while.

Was that before or after your mother died?

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Before. Before. Yeah, before. This is, she died in 1965 and I’m talking about, now I’m talking 1962 I’m talking now. That’s right, yeah.

So, why did you go away?

Why did I go?

Yeah.

Well I didn’t have anything here really and I wanted to go abroad and I fancied it. I fancied, you know people say, oh well Spain’s quite interesting. And people didn’t go in those days, it was quite rare to go, you know. There wasn’t that many people going to Spain. But, you know, I got the train and the bus and got to Malaga. And then from Malaga I got to Torremolinos which is only a little dusty village and Marbella, which was quite interesting ‘cos I got there and I went to the Marbella Club who was, that Prince Alfonso had started with that famous girl he’d run away with, the heiress. It was a most famous sort of club there, wasn’t it, you know, Marbella Club with all the kind of aristocracy and film stars and things. This is before Marbella become, there was no Puerto Banus or anything, I mean it was just a little, you know, small place. And I liked it and I met people there. I met kind of Doris Duke’s son, who was the famous tobacco heiress, American. And I used to smoke kind of marijuana there in 1962 and I’d never had it before and things like that. Then I went to Tangiers and I got a little job helping out the guy who wrote hit records in the fifties. What was his name? He lived there, I don’t know why he lived there, with his German wife ‘cos of some trouble he’d had. And I helped him and I got in with all that kind of, then I worked in a bar there for a little while with this sort of lesbian lady from… ‘cos you know, anyone who was a bit of an outcast would end up in Tangiers you see. You know, like gay men and all that, it was a place that people would end up. You know, if they’d had troubles in England, they’d end up there. And this woman, I sort of helped her for a couple of weeks with the bar and all that and done bits and stayed out there and it was quite good, it was interesting.

Did you go to the Marbella Club?

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Yes. Yeah, wonderful. I remember there, a big grand piano and I kind of – I don’t know why, I was only a little scruffy funny thing – but they kind of accepted me and I kind of knew a little bit about art and talking and I don’t know, and managed to be able to go in there.

And you made friendships?

No, I didn’t get as far as making friendships there, no. But as I say, you know, you could go there once, and I didn’t get as far as that, but they all used to like – I mean Elizabeth Taylor and all that, I mean they all used to go there, the most famous place. You know, it was like Monte Carlo and then [inaudible] and Marbella Club, it was like a thing at the time. And course, and Torremolinos was interesting. There was always like American guys opening a bar who’d kind of, had businesses in Madison Avenue and cheated everyone or something and had to run out there and hide. And there was people like that. Just interesting people. And Lord Willoughby who, ‘cos he’d died a mysterious death in a boat, went off sailing in a boat one day and never come back. The Lalee [ph] Club or Laley, Laley [ph] Club – and it was fantastic. Every table had a crayon and a drawing, you could draw, sit there drawing and the roof used to open in the summer and play like weird music, like Musique Concrete and you know, kind of music, like jazz, play jazz. Didn’t last long there, but it was a great place. The first time John Lennon, well he went to Germany, he went there for a week didn’t he, John Lennon, when I was there. With the manager man who died, you know. For five days, he never, you know. That was funny. But nobody took any notice really, ‘cos that was rock ‘n’ roll, it wasn’t smart. Funny isn’t it?

But, you went out there alone?

.Mm.

And when you were in these clubs, how would you behave, how would you interact?

Well, I mean it wasn’t, it wasn’t full up with people so if anyone come along, but I kind of, they didn’t mind people, like a few other people, people like me - there was an American

Tommy Roberts Page 189 C1046/12/18 girl I used to hang about with. There was a few people who were sort of out there doing nothing really and they’d give you a free drink ‘cos it was kind of livening up their premises and whatever. A couple of other clubs, and mostly people who’d, French Pied- noirs, the people who’d been thrown out when Algeria had independence, they didn’t like it and they all left Algeria ‘cos they were French and they didn’t like the Algerians, you know, and they left. Well they were all kind of displaced people and they opened these sort of bars in places like Spain. It was Franco in Spain, so it was a fascist place, Spain, so they felt more at home there. [laughs] Not that I ever thought of that, only something that occurred to me twenty years afterwards. It was just interesting, it was just before the tourist boom, just before. It was just starting up. And I could stay on the beach in a little pension for twelve and six a night and you know, it was just before the boom of all that Andalucia and Costa del Sol and stuff.

Would you have spoken to any of these sort of famous people?

Well, they’re not famous, but yeah, these people, the funny people. There was a bloke in, he was out there, I think he had a gift shop and he had a thing, I vaguely remember it, it was a big sort of a big disgraceful thing in the fifties called the Sunset Accommodation Bureau. Something, and he took all the deposits off people for flats and month’s deposit and then he you know, and scarpered. It was some – I can’t remember what it all was, but he – people like that out there. Quite interesting people really.

And you would speak to them?

Yeah. Yeah. Go in there and you’d speak to them and that, ask why he’s there and tell you. Oh, can’t go, I want to go back, can’t stand this, you know and all that. In fact he was in Tangiers, this fellow. He couldn’t, you know, he couldn’t get back, he just wanted to get back and he could, but he couldn’t come home. There were a lot of people like that, a lot of people had been prosecuted for homosexual activities here and stuff like that, they’d go to Tangiers. All that kind of thing. Would have been disgrace. ‘Cos then, you know, it was a disgrace then and things like that, they couldn’t show their face. Probably have rich… the families were quite rich so they could have a bit of money out there and live a life out there, really. Squadron Leader something or someone in the, the old RAF

Tommy Roberts Page 190 C1046/12/18 badge on their blazer and you know, some, he’d done something or, you know, and that’s where he’d ended up. Famous for it. Books have been written on it, you know, Tangiers. Americans, all sort of weird different people. Quite interesting place, very interesting. Well it had been a free city you see, an open city up to about 1956, where anything goes. It was no, there was no controls, there was no tax, there was no nothing. But then you know, Spain sort of… and Tangiers become under Moroccan rule and there was the old city and the new city. The old city was Arab and the new city was kind of modern, you know. Kind of… mixture of both. Nowadays it’s different, but long time ago. The souk, go down there, walk through all the little alleys and stuff. It was all kind of exciting.

And how did you relate to these sort of disgraced characters?

Well I didn’t think disgraced, again, all this is circumspect after sort of not realising why these men are out there. Living in places called the Hotel Bristol or you know, the Alcazar Pal… you know, whatever, like rooms in these places and I suppose they made a life out there. Frenchmen, a lot of French, although they didn’t like them, Moroccans didn’t like the French at the time. All nations; Americans. All different people was out there, interesting people. Artists and things. People used to go there for a holiday and that. I mean this woman, she was very nice, this woman. She had a sort of tweed – she come from somewhere like Cheltenham – and she had a tweed skirt on with a like plait done up like that, like something out the kind of 1930s home counties, you know, and had a bloody bar out there. Extraordinary people. Then there was another bar, there was like middle aged – and I was quite young and they were quite friendly, ‘Oh have a drink Tommy’, sort of bar cowboy or something. Obviously two old, sort of left over from the war, old German – ‘scuse the language – bints who’d been like, [laughs] got left behind in the war or something and still had their little bar there, these two women and sort of very, very strange people out there. Kind of people who didn’t fit into anything anywhere else really. And made a life there. Bit different in, but Tangiers particularly, Jimmy Campbell. This guy, I used to drive him around ‘cos he was drunk, alcoholic, he couldn’t drive, so I’d drive him here, there and everywhere. And he wrote fantastic songs and so it stayed, come back he had a flat in this sort of modern block and he played a record. He said, ‘I wrote this record’. [Foggy Night in London Town], famous record, you know and all that, and then, bastard, you know. He was obviously all screwed up about it all and you see, then

Tommy Roberts Page 191 C1046/12/18 they asked, ‘Shall I put that record on?’ ‘Don’t put any more records on. I want silence in here, I think I’ve got a phone call coming through from Hollywood in a minute’ you know. And course it was all [inaudible].

So, how did you hook up with him?

Well my dad had been [laughs] on holiday, my father, I think he met him in a bar. He said, ‘When you go, give this phone number a ring’, you know, ‘cos I said I might end up going there and that’s how I – I think my father give me the money and I went. And I did ring and the German wife answered, said oh yeah, Tommy’s friend, yeah. ‘Cos my dad was quite, obviously been out there laughing and joking like he was and drinking and they all knew him. Oh, Tommy, yeah yeah. So, with my father’s name, so that and then he said, well, and his wife said, ‘Well if you drive Jimmy about, you can…’, sort of we’ll buy you dinner or something. Funny isn’t it? ‘Don’t put any other record on ‘cos Hollywood might ring’ you know. Hollywood was never gonna ring, ever, you know. Like that, it’s sad really.

What was his background though?

I can’t, he wrote famous songs in the… he wrote standards. I couldn’t tell you one now, can’t remember one. Probably wrote songs for kind of, you know, films, thirties films, you know thirties stars and – I think he wrote Frank Sinatra songs on one of his famous album… you know, he wrote songs. He was kind of, probably had quite a big income at the time, probably, coming his way. But for some reason he couldn’t go back. I don’t know why. Some reason he couldn’t go back. And he said, well you know, that radio show, I’m doing a radio show in thing for… I’ve got to go to New York, you know, you’d better fuck off now ‘cos I’m going… and all this, you know. It was only ‘cos he was alcoholic, you know. It was all fantasy. Characters. What I did. Then I come back from there, then I met a friend there, working in a bar in Torremolinos. I’d been there messing about and having a good time really, nice time, then I didn’t have any money much left and he had a van, old van and he wanted to come back, so I got in the van, we took this other guy who wanted – he lived in Madrid, so we dropped him off in Madrid and he lived in this palatial apartment, his mother was married to a high ranking Spanish General or

Tommy Roberts Page 192 C1046/12/18 something, head of the, you know, Marchion Escavier de Santesi [ph] – oh I don’t know what it was. The mother, so he was a funny bloke, I think he was gay, I don’t know what he was. But anyway, so we all ended up there, staying there in this sort of luxurious apartment for about three or four days… Then we went to Paris and then somebody lived there. Dropped somebody else off in Paris, stayed there for a while and then this van broke and he just about got over the, over into Dover actually and it sort of expired and that was that. And I locked up the van, we had some nice, I’d been doing some nice drawings and stuff, but course by the time I’d gone back to get these a week later, of course it had all been nicked. But anyway, that was it. And wended my way back to London. Went down my house, ‘cos my mother wasn’t there, only my father was there. And I thought my father had been drinking and stuff and he was a bit peculiar, so I thought I’d better get a job here, you know and do something. Then I went and got a job for a little while. Selling cars of all things. But it was quite good for me. I liked that job. I’m gonna have a cup of tea, I want a break. D’you mind?

Right.

We haven’t got anything yet have we, designing or anything yet have we?

We’ll get there.

Fucking Lord.

[End of Track 18] [Track 19]

[cat miaowing]

So, before you came back to England, I was wondering, you’re meeting all these sort of, or seeing…

Yeah.

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… all these famous people.

Yeah, yeah.

And what was the extent to your relationship with them?

Well, didn’t have any close relationships with anyone really, I suppose I was a bit, you know they were all older really, mostly and things. And younger ones in, I mean in Torremolinos or whatever and kind of, I suppose it was an extended holiday really wasn’t it? Little bits of helping out and things. It was, yeah. You just got interested to see all those places before they really took off as holiday resorts and things.

So, was it a case of…

And the interesting was all these people who’d sort of ended up there like American people who’d been on the films, working the films for years and there was guys there who worked – who did the, he used to make all these – Charles Bronson was it who used to make all these kind of, what you call… you know, them big films where they… spectaculars – El Cid and… they used to make them in Spain and these guys all sort of lived there ‘cos they used to work on these big films occasionally and all that. There was Ernest Hemingway’s double, I always remember him. Bloke who looked like Ernest Hemingway and if there was ever a picture wanted or something with – God knows how many, about one job every twenty years, but he was known as, his work was Ernest Hemingway’s double. Whatever that was, I don’t know. I always remember that. I thought, it struck me as very strange. Funny really. I thought well there can’t be a lot of work. [laughs] Yeah.

So could you set a typical scene for us. If you’re in one of these clubs and…

Well, I can’t say it’s a lovely interior of clubs, you know, it was before interiors of clubs invented, it was just kind of like very low key. There wasn’t sound systems or anything, it was just a bit of music and a few people buying a drink and having a dance and there’d be like… like the Lalee Lalee [ph] Club, it was half open, so the roof used to go back so it

Tommy Roberts Page 194 C1046/12/19 was open to the elements, the sky and then the local characters used to go there. Torremolinos Betty was one, there was a woman who – I think she’d lived there since 1949, 1950 - and she’d trained to be the first female bullfighter and things like that. Torremolinos Bet… There was these, all these characters. But they were mostly a bit older really, there wasn’t sort of many my age. The guy who I went back with, he worked ‘cos he usually got a job there serving in the, working in this club for a little while.

Who was that?

Can’t remember his name. He was a good friend. You’ll have to work with me a bit ‘cos my memory’s a bit difficult. I know him very well. Harvey. Harvey. Yeah, Harvey. And he opened, he had a club, I mean in bars and restaurants in London, in Fulham Road and things, you know, over the years. Harvey Seabrook. And I came back with him. And I suppose it was, it was nice there.

So you met him out there?

What?

You met Harvey?

Met him out there, yeah, yeah. Stayed friends with him of course, always stayed friends with him.

What’s he like?

Nice fellow. He had a nice wife, daughters and kind of… went a bit crazy. Then I think he went and opened a bar in Ibiza and places, always a bit of a traveller around. Then he had a restaurant in Shepherds Bush, then in Fulham Road and he was clever, but you know, too much of all that drug… you know, whatever. But then, now he’s alright. I think he kind of had this house, he sold it for an enormous sum of money, in South Kensington and he got some other things and I think they kind of live abroad and go round sort of the Far East on a sort of permanent holiday I think, with the wife. Daughters grown

Tommy Roberts Page 195 C1046/12/19 up and I think that’s what he does, so I think it all worked you know, fine. He was a bit of a sod though, bit of a sod.

[laughs]

Bit naughty.

Excuse me. What d’you mean?

Bit naughty. Won’t go into it, ‘cos he’s my mate…

Okay. But…

Not criminal. No, I don’t mean that, but you know.

So, famous people in these clubs.

Yeah.

Where would…

Well I wouldn’t say famous, but characters let’s say, more than you know. There was a few kind of famous people floating about. It was a bit of a smart place to go in those days if you was, you know, for a film star or something. It was a bit of a smart place to be, Malaga – Marbella rather. It was a smart place to be. Not many people went there. There was no, you know, there was no package holidays, it was an expensive place to get to. And most people had never been there. More, they’d been to Costa Brava and Barcelona, but that was quite south, it was quite a long way, you know those days, it was a long way away. I think the airport to – ‘cos when the airport, built the airport at Malaga it meant they could do the package… then it started up. And it had just opened the airport I think when I was there, and it was just starting, the building work, the construction, you know. Torremolinos, which is now a kind of just a strip there isn’t it, with all you know, it’s just like one strip of, all built up, all of it you know, it’s like… But then it was a dusty village.

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Policeman in the middle on the village square, going like that to the horse and cart, occasional bus trundling through. It was a village. Bar there, the American, Pedro’s Bar, an American guy had a bar there. Café, beer stand, little walkway to the beach where I stayed for twelve and six a night. The actual esplanade had been built a bit, they’d actually built a little bit of esplanade with a couple of, two or three nice cafes and things along. That was built, but behind the town was a, you know, where the Spanish people lived behind the square, going up, you go up the hill behind the square, it was still like the original of the sort of eighteenth century village. A little bit of new building. Just village, a fishing village, that’s what it was really, a fishing village. But course, it had just started the influx of visitors and tourists and there was just you know, where the wife had been, fisherman’s wife, she probably worked in the – and they’d built a big smart hotel along the coast as well. Called – still there, the famous hotel – they’d built that. They’d built a golf club near Marbella, that was the other thing. They’d built… going in for golf and they’d built a golf club. That had happened. It was early days, but it was just taking off with all that kind of, you know, there was a car hire place, you could hire yourself a car and things. But it hadn’t you know, it was just the beginnings of it all really.

But you, in these clubs, were you able to go and introduce yourself to these characters?

Well, people would say, you know they’d see you there perhaps one night, then they’d see you walking about – it was a village, you know, they’d see you walking in the street, you know. Then I think I had sort of funnyish clothes on perhaps, I kind of had sort of like a, I used to wear a sort of a funny raincoat, I dunno why. ‘Cos it rained a bit then and it was early in the year. Kind of long raincoat and I might have had, I think I had a pair of like Spanish cowboy boots and hat, a straw hat or something, you know, little bit like that. Beret, I think I used to wear like a Basque beret, that was it, you know. ‘Cos they’d know you and if you saw… and you’d invariably see ‘em in that Pedro’s Bar in the afternoon or walking along that bit of the strip, the road there. And they’d say, oh I’d meet you, d’you want to go to, d’you want to go and have a drink or something, whatever and meet you at that bar and you might go round at eight, someone’s gonna be there. And it was that kind of thing. There wasn’t fabulous enjoyments, great big fabulous parties or thing, you know, whatever, it was just kind of a life.

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And if you’d have seen somebody like Elizabeth Taylor for example…

Yeah, I did. But I wouldn’t have recognised her, you know, I wasn’t geared up in that way to be, you know, I wouldn’t have known anyway. But I know they have – I did meet Elizabeth Taylor, but that was later – but I’m just trying to think who would have been around at that time. Yeah. Anyone like they used to call ‘the jet set’, if that was a… you did, the jet set. Moneyed people and celebrities and that and the Marbella Club was a place that they would go. And that have a lovely big lounge, it overlooked the sea, you know, it was right on the edge of the sands. Big, I always remember, big grand piano, [inaudible], which was very nice, wander in. Sort of all open, all the glass stuff was all over it, it was all open and there was a big cushion I think. And I kind of vaguely remember you’d just sort of wander in this lovely building. No-one said don’t come in or come in, you’d go in. Couldn’t really afford a drink there really, but you kind of, don’t know what you do. Somebody might buy you a drink or something or scoop up an ‘andful of nuts on the… I don’t know quite, you know. But I was very impressed with it anyway. I thought ah, this is alright, this is good. I like this. And you even thought then, I thought oh, this is gonna be something, you know. But it was exclusive then, they wouldn’t even let in the tourists then, it was exclusive then. It was you know, sort of minor European royalty and that kind of thing was there. Lots of these people who were kind of minor… there was lots and lots of them. Spanish royalty that of course in those days, Franco, there was no Spanish… and they were sort of exiled, but there was a clique kind of thing. Prince Alfonso something was the owner with, was it Bobo Seigrest? I can’t remember the wife, she was a Bolivian millionaire’s daughter runaway, famous fifties case of kind of running off with this kind of playboy bloke. And they opened this thing, and it was a big thing. Later on of course, not so much, ‘cos people, that all got… Marbella sort of got opened by sort of all those kind of like gangsters and Londoners and all that and I suppose then, course those people would have moved on to the island of Mustique or somewhere like that, you know. Island in the Caribbean, different. Yachts. They have yachts as well, you know, yachts. ‘Cos they had big yachts and that, Lord and Lady Docker and people like that.

Did you go on a yacht?

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Mm?

Did you go on a yacht?

I don’t know if I did or not. I can’t remember. I don’t know if I did or not. I can’t remember. But I did fall in with this Doris Duke who was one of the – I think she was the wealthiest woman in America in the fifties. She owned all the, you know, she was a tobacco heiress. Her son, he was there, but he was really extreme. And I don’t know what happened to him, but I can remember driving along the road, a little road with the car about an inch away from falling over the precipice and he was driving because he’d been smoking a load of kif, you know like Moroccan hash and hashish. I remember that. I don’t know where we were going, I think we was going somewhere to… it’s partly that I sort of can’t really remember. Can vaguely remember.

So, you…

A few people there with parents with money, you know, with kind of, where they divorced or they didn’t live with the parents but they had money. I suppose they’d run out of money and go to Gibraltar and go to the bank there and draw another five hundred pound or something, I don’t know. Lived out there. Wealthy sort of New York girl, I think it was New York Jewish girl, that I become a mate of there and you know, she seemed to live there and I could never quite work out the circumstances of it all. But she seemed to not, have enough money to do what she wanted, you know. I’m not saying she had enough money to go out to Madrid and buy a load of clothing or anything, but enough to sort of be out there without any sort of gainful means of employment. Well I imagine she was just, got some money from the parents. She probably had eighteen months there or something like that. There was quite a few people like that.

What was your experience of drugs by this stage?

Very limited. None really. I mean I think that was my first introduction to it, smoking marijuana. Although, you could have got it in London at the time, but I don’t think, I think

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I was more interested in dancing and that. It wasn’t in my mind really. You know, it didn’t come into the sort of scheme of things.

Did it ever?

Later on a little bit, but not, only for recreational purposes, you know. A bit mad sometimes, but experiment, try it all.

So you came back.

Came back.

And then you had to…

Got off the – come back to Victoria Station, got the green line to Blackheath, or something. Got off at the bus stop opposite the house, walked across the heath where my father lived and it was a bit grim, ‘cos I think he was on his own at the time and he’d been living in a hotel, but he’d come back to live in the house. My mother wasn’t there, was she. I think it was my father was there and I popped up, and he was sort of half pleased to see me, but I think he thought I might be staying away for two years, you know. I don’t think he, you know… right, so in I went. But he was a bit, he wasn’t all that – he was alright, but he wasn’t that, in a happy frame of mind. He was drinking a bit at the time, it was a bit difficult. So I thought well I’d better try and find something to do here. Now my friend had bought a car off this car dealer and it broke down and I said, oh I’ll come with you and get this, you know. Sunbeam Rapier, drop leaf, dropped head car. And it didn’t work properly so I went back, back with him to this place. But being a bit crafty and being sort of looking for a bit of a main chance, he was moaning and I could see this bloke was under pressure, he had no-one to help him. And I said, well I’ll wash those cars down with you – he had the hosepipe and I said I’ll do that. And I sort of washed two or three of these cars. It was in East Dulwich, car place in East Dulwich, open sort of pit. Arthur, his name was, and he said, d’you want to come and do a little bit tomorrow? I said, yeah, yeah. My friend said, oh you’re a turncoat, you were supposed to come down with me and all that. Anyway I ended up working there. It was quite for me ‘cos he was kind of, very

Tommy Roberts Page 200 C1046/12/19 good he was, he was kind of, got the best out of you and I was loyal to him, I liked him. Although he was a bit, he was a crafty devil but I liked the man and he kind of got me where, he got the most out of someone. I thought he was very clever. And I did alright, you know. I suddenly had a bit of money and if I wanted a – when I’d been two, it didn’t take more than about six months and I bought myself a Mini Cooper S Mini with all you know, the special Mini with all the wheels and wonderful number. A bright red Mini Cooper S, a rare car. It wasn’t long before I was in that sort of bracket. And I kind of earned quite a lot of money there in a way. Being on my own I didn’t have any outgoings, I lived at home with father and I didn’t have to pay anything, so you know, most young men’s wages was fifteen pound and I was probably earning forty pound and things. Quite a lot of money. But I had to work hard for it. Then I could, I would buy some clothes and I’d go to the tailor in The Cut in Waterloo and I’d have a sort of, Jacque Fath suit made, you know, which was a collarless suit. It was The Beatles wore later on, but at the time it wasn’t and I don’t know why, I had one made for some reason, like a copy of this Jacque Fath suit and I had all the… and some nice, you know, a wonderful doe skin jacket with kind of braiding all round it, you know. I could do things like that, nice clothes. Seemed to be important at the time.

Where would you have seen those designs like the jacket without the…

Oh, in fashion, Esquire magazine or you know, fashion magazine – you know, I mean still buy the magazines. And I thought, ah I’d like that, then I had one made.

And how much would that have cost?

I had it in black corduroy, thin corduroy. A bit. Say equivalent would be a thousand pound today, so it’d be like three weeks’ wages or two weeks’ wages. You know, if you was earning a bit of money, you know, it’d be a bit. Weren’t cheap, no. And I was always having things made, all the time.

Was it always the same tailor you would go to?

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Yeah, I’d go to the same tailor. Chaime, Chaime [ph] Brothers or something in The Cut. They were quite well-known for these kind of suits. And if I come in, they’d say oh, get Tommy, oh get the circus patterns out. ‘Cos you know, ‘cos I wouldn’t want anything conventional and all he could think of, he had a few like colourful cloths for the stage or something and he called ‘em the circus range. And I’d say I want that kind of plaid trousers in that plaid, or something like that and a bright red jacket. You know, it was sort of unheard of really, but I used to have these things made and wear ‘em. With a beret. I always wore a sort of Basque beret. But I didn’t have much time to indulge myself because I was working all the time. Then I used to go down to Hastings and you kind of… then I met my first wife I think, when I was working there. At a jazz club – the Bromley Court Hotel, used to do a jazz night and I think I met my first wife there, yeah. 1965.

What was her name?

Mary. Mary Brooks, her name was. Petite, little like blonde girl. Mini skirt and that, you know. But I used to go down the, stay in Hastings, I used to get off Saturday night – sometimes I had to work Sunday, Sunday mornings - but I used to get off and go down there.

So how did that relationship sort of develop?

He’s funny, is Arthur. He was a very funny – he was from the East End, a docker, ex- docker he was. Very, very East End working class family. He was clever. And he had three children, he sent them all to university and all went to Cambridge and Oxford, all of them. And they’re all like sort of professors of medicine and stuff like that. It’s funny isn’t it? Yeah, he did, this man. He was sort of… I wouldn’t say criminal, but dodgy. Don’t really think we should say that really, ‘cos he might… Yeah. Clever, you know. I never got involved there, but I, yeah, he was always – the cars weren’t quite right. [laughs] You know, I’d sell these cars and they were really, we used to jolly ‘em all up and sell ‘em. There was something not… I quite enjoyed it really, in a funny, horrid way. It wasn’t very nice really, people buying these cars, they weren’t very good cars. But I kind of thought, well you know, life’s like that. And it’s still like it and people don’t notice it. In fact, at least you were more honest then ‘cos you could see what you were doing. Now

Tommy Roberts Page 202 C1046/12/19 you’re cheated on the telephone and they say, wait – about twenty minutes you’re hanging on the phone while they’re charging you – they’re cheating you all day long and people don’t even realise it. At least you know, at least the bloke come round the house to direct sell the bit of brushes and it was all crap, but women used to buy… it was kind of upfront. The cheating today is all – you’re being cheated all the time. You’re cheated in insurance, you’re cheated in your car. It’s sort of cheating. Anything – that red telephone on the telly, you know it’s a cheat. It’s all cheat. But somehow it’s all dummied up as if it isn’t. I don’t understand, you know, upfront cheating, you took your chance but the cheating that goes on today, you’re being fiddled all the time with things. I know you are, people are. You know, you’re charged a load of money for the phone and you don’t, if you scrimp and save for your bill you might find… but if you don’t, you let it go and they know, you know. So, you know morally, I think it was more, in a funny way, it was better.

When you said ‘jolly up the cars’, what do you mean?

Cleaning the cars. I was good at cleaning these cars and I could kind of scrub all out the interior and re-polish them and change, re-chrome the bumpers and all this kind of thing and paint the wheels black and sort of – well one of the most disgraceful things of my life really, I used to cut the tyres – you have a machine, you’d put the treads back in, which was dangerous really, ‘cos there was no tread, you put the tread back in. So a person going up the motorway, aquaplaning could kill ‘em. But anyway, it wasn’t illegal and I had to do it in the job. So as I’m doing this one day, over the thing it said that President Kennedy had been shot. So that’s why I always remember President, you know, I remember the day, November sixty-three ‘cos I remember it. And it made my cry, and it made everyone cry – isn’t that funny? Wouldn’t do it now, but that, President Kennedy… ‘cos afterwards you find out he wasn’t such a nice bloke anyway. But he was I suppose younger and it meant something and I can remember sitting [laughs] in this shed, I’d be cutting these tyres in his shed and hearing on the radio that he’d been shot, gravely ill and then you didn’t really think, oh he’s just been shot, he’ll go into hospital. Then you all listen about an hour later and you suddenly dawned that it had killed him, and I cried. It’s funny isn’t it? I remember that, mm. Right. Anyway, did this job and did it for about a year and I got an MGB, a sportscar and whatever and it was quite good for me really. Then I struck out on my own, this other guy, we struck out with this other guy, doing cars, but it wasn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 203 C1046/12/19 really for me and he said, look I can’t work with you, you know. And he was, and I used to be going off in the day and looking round antique shops and buying kind of fabric and things. Like I might go and buy a sort of eighteenth century textile in a shop and I thought I’ll cover a, you know, get a chair covered with it or something. Funny things like that, I would.

What was this business, sorry?

Pardon?

What was this business that you’re talking about?

I’m still in the car business, I’m in the car, I’m still selling cars, but independently now.

And what was using the fabrics for?

Oh no, it’s just me. Instead of concentrating on the cars I’d be more wandering off to a sort of antique shop and fiddling about. My heart wasn’t in it. He knew that and he said, well d’you want x amount of money? I said, alright, give me the money. He said I can’t pay you a lot, I’ll pay you over six months. I said, alright, three cheques, whatever. And I did that and then… So I had a bit of money and then I sort of done something else and I lost it, doing something. Won’t go into that. And then, well…

You mentioned meeting your first wife. Could you say how that sort of relationship developed into marriage?

Well I met her at this jazz – the Bromley Court Hotel, they used to do jazz, you know like dancing, met her there. Took her home, whatever. I think she had some other boyfriend, I think, I don’t know quite know what. Then I met her again, went out and then she da da, then I don’t know what. And after, it was a while, then I think we went to Torquay for a week, something like that I think. Devon or something, five days and I had the MGB and all the rest of it. And then I, I think she was desperate to leave home. [laughs] I don’t know really. And then she wanted to get married. I said alright, okay. And then I thought

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I don’t really want to marry her. And then I was – didn’t see her for about a fortnight and then I went back, liked her and everything, and I said to my dad I was getting married. Well he was overjoyed ‘cos he, you know, I’m off the… oh, wonderful that was, I’m getting married, [laughs] loved the idea of that. When, you know, tomorrow? [laughs] And so we got married and we had a wedding, registry office wedding and my father had a marquee in the garden of the house in Blackheath and we had this sort of wedding and then we got married and lived – and he gave me six months’ rent on a flat round the corner in Blackheath and there was a load of people in this house [inaudible]. That’s another story, but that ended up quite funny. But, so I sort of got married. You did in those days a bit. We didn’t have any - I mean I did have a son but that wasn’t until, he wasn’t born till 1970. Got married, yeah. Don’t quite know how I got married really, but I did. That was then and then it all come to an end, then my mother died. And I’d fallen out with my mother and that was rather traumatic ‘cos I’d, you know ‘cos I hadn’t seen her and I went round there and she said to me, ‘You mustn’t get married’. [laughs] Yeah, she said, ‘Don’t get married, don’t get married’. In a funny way she was right.

[End of Track 19] [Track 20]

But she was ill and that was very traumatic and very upsetting and we’d fallen, as I say, we’d not been, we’d fallen out, you know a bit and it was restrained circumstances. I was living with my dad and you know, whatever and it was all a bit not very nice.

How had you fallen out?

Well, ‘cos she said, well I said to her once, I was fed up with my dad, I’ll come and stay with you and she said, no you’re not living in this, I’m not having you in this house. So I said alright, well only for a week. She said I don’t want you here for one day, you know. I said, I won’t interfere with your enjoyment so I’ll go elsewhere. Something like that and it all got horrible and then I didn’t talk and I said, I’m not talking to you ever again and it all went on for a long time and it got horrible, all unnecessary and all ridiculous. But it does, that’s how it does sometimes. So that was that. And anyway, my mother died.

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Did you know that she was ill?

I knew she was ill and I went to visit, but I didn’t visit even properly and in fact the priest come round to my house to pick up things. I don’t know what it was, it had all got awful and it was a terrible guilt and you know, something I’ve got to live with, but that’s how it was. That’s it. Died of cancer and that’s it.

And how did you sort of deal with that at the time?

Mm?

How did you deal with that?

I was very upset. Didn’t think I was, I was very upset. And you do, you know, deal with it. Funeral and that was the end of it. Then my father got married, re-married straightaway to someone else. And then he said well your mother’s house, he said I don’t want the money, there’s the money, you’d better have the cheque for it, I don’t want it and that was it, the end of it. And then, what did I do then? Oh I did one of these schemes, I think in between and something had gone wrong, I can’t remember what it was now. Something to do with making hats or – that’s right, I had to make children’s clothes. They were quite nice, nice children’s clothes. I had this little factory making children’s – Barry St John it was called. Making like suede children’s hats and stuff. I don’t know what it was, I don’t know why, somebody else was doing it, I got involved and I got involved. And you know, go and sell these clothes and it all got too much and it was draining my only bit of money I had over a period of time and it all went kerfoof and that was the end of that one. So I ended up married, no money really. What to do? So, we went – I think down this part of the way, we went to Sandwich for a day, I think two days at Sandwich and I went, they used to have a market and I went to Sandwich market and I bought a few bits in the market like some books and I think I bought a little piece of pine furniture, pine chest of drawers, all for like ten pound or something. But I thought I rather like this. So the guy who sold it come up to me, he said, oh d’you buy? I said, yeah. He said well I’ve got a shop in Ramsgate so I went round there, and then I met someone else round there and I thought well, I quite like this kind of thing. Reverse. As this is going on – now let me get these

Tommy Roberts Page 206 C1046/12/20 facts straight. I used to go up to Carnaby Street and stuff, have a look, whatever. Bought a t-shirt – this was sixty-five, yeah. And then I’m driving round Carnaby Street, Regent Street, Ganton Street… What’s it, where the shop, famous street for me. Just in front of Liberty’s, the little street. I can’t, you know, it’s mad. I can’t think of the name of it. Carnaby Street, Regent Street, this street, you know. I’ll think of it in a minute, you know. Anyway I’m driving down this street, there’s a teeny little shop and it said, to let. So, bit of a dead street, it really is a back door to the Regent Street shops and Hamley’s back door and where the lorries used to unload their bits and few, couple of textile warehouses and there wasn’t much in this street. I’ll think of the name of it, but it’s got a, now, couple of pubs, couple of cafes, not much. Never see the sun, bit of a dark street ‘cos it was quite, Regent Street, and then it was quite narrow streets so not much sunlight. So I’m driving down there – to let, shop. Oh. What can I do there? Maybe I’ll do some – I think I had some stock, these children’s clothes, I thought I’ll do a children’s, I mean we’ll do a children’s boutique. ‘Cos a friend of mine opened a boutique in Blackheath and it had all become the buzzword, this boutique. There was a few stores, little boutiques opening up all the time, in Carnaby Street, was just starting to happen. And I thought, oh that’ll be good, I’ll do smart kidswear. I don’t know, I don’t think my heart was in kidswear, I knew it was kind of wrong but I couldn’t think of anything, I was thinking what to do, I liked the little shop. So, I went back, didn’t think any more of it. Bought these bits, went to have another look, walk about. Went into Gear Trading Company, Gear of Carnaby Street, Gear Trading Company. Great shop. It was all posters and it had a little bit of pine furniture in the window and it was kind of trendy, kind of things. Trying to think, like tea towels with ‘I’m backing Britain’ on and all that Union Jack, you know, carrier bags and whatever. Oh I like this, you know it’s quite good. So anyway. See this shop, ring up about this shop, it’s twelve pound a week but you, wants a premium, thousand pound. Right. So I said I’ll have it. Where will I get the thousand pound, anyway I’ll have it. So, then I said I’ve only got five hundred pound. And he said alright then, the bloke had gone broke, they were trying to sell fashions, you know. And in the end I think I got it for two hundred. I said well, you know, I said actually I’ve only got two hundred pound. Okay. If you sign the thing you can have it for two hundred. So, borrowed the two hundred pound off my father, borrowed another two hundred to paint it out. Painted it out purple and like – why, I don’t know quite why – purple and stuff and hung – and then I thought well, what are we gonna do in here? I don’t fancy this children’s… first of all I painted it white for

Tommy Roberts Page 207 C1046/12/20 children. I don’t like this, I don’t like this, it’s not right. And then I looked at Gear, then I thought well I’ll do a few old clothes as well. People weren’t doing old clothes then. Old clothes was old clothes, you know. So, I went off and found kind of quite interesting sort of theatrical like blazers, striped blazers, twenties blazer… a few bits and pieces, not much, a few things. I think an old army uniform – few things, put that in there. Bought a couple of bits of that pine furniture, painted the chest of drawers with a big Union Jack on it, put it in the window. Put a record player in the shop playing sort of, at the time it was before West Coast music playing – I don’t know, pop music. Bought a lot of those frin… well they’re now expensive – those kind of fringed shawls. They’re Spanish with all embroidery on, black. And so I pinned all them up, all these fringes hanging down and painted the inside back wall purple and called it Kleptomania. And opened the door. Paid a month’s rent in advance. It was very slow, but people would come in, and I had a few interesting bits. I think I had a penny farthing bicycle what somebody give me and I sold it for two hundred. And again I had all like, it was kind of, people liked it, they liked it and a few people come in, say oh I want – and I had a few prints and I had all things like General Gordon and bust of General Gordon, all that Victoriana which was the thing at the time, that Victoriana. Enamel signs of like Stephen’s Ink, enamel signs and all different funny bits and people, they bought them. And I tried to buy a few new things in like those days, designed some tea towels and then I got in with a bloke who was printing stuff and he started to print a bit of stuff and I bought these clothes. And the clothes, well the clothes kind of sell the clothes. Then a young fellow come, he was only sixteen, Paul Reeves, very clever and he was making – no, this is a bit later. This is sixty… End of year, what’s this, this is sort of – see this is, I’m into sixty-six. And then we’re doing – and I’d go round and buy a bit of old things and bring it back, a stuffed bear, all manner of things. Then I’d go to the market, buy old bowler hats and I’d sell them. And I’d buy old frock coats, I bought a load of old frock coats once and they went like dynamite. It kind of started. And then suddenly it was Christmas sixty-six or something and I think I took a hundred and thirty pound in one day. And I thought this, you know this is something special. So I got cracking going round buying these things. Then I might somebody, a guy called – he had a shop called I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet. It was just opening in the Portobello Road, the top end and he was selling all these army uniforms and they were all queuing outside for these. And I thought this is good and I tried to be, and I sort of got mates with him and I bought two bundles of these red tunics and had them in there. Then

Tommy Roberts Page 208 C1046/12/20 that was the first sort of real trend wildfire that I’d ever been involved with, it was just kind of, they really went. I mean they were queuing up to buy all this, old uniforms. Old policeman’s capes, then I bought old sailor’s trousers; white ones, we dyed ‘em all green, purple, yellow – got a dyer to do a bundle of a hundred for a special price - all that. And then, yeah and it was really, that was all the look at the time. And there was this old granddad’s t-shirt with three buttons, old vest. And you’d buy a bundle and I bought bundles of them in grey and I had them all dyed in sort of purple and dark green and black and then sell ‘em for a guinea or something and out it all went, and busy. Going round buying, people started to know that I wanted old clothes, bring me stuff as well. Started to clear all the theatrical costumiers in the West End were all closing down, then it was the end of that era. Go and clear out a theatrical costumiers with all sort of red Indian squaws; leather skirts with fringes and things. And it was a sort of, it wasn’t quite hippy then ‘cos it hadn’t really started. Didn’t start till the end of sixty-six, all that hippy thing. We were just before that. Then we got publicity, you know, I never knew we had public, never had anything like… got all like the, all the Rave magazine, all the teenage magazines of the day doing articles on it and people from abroad coming, taking photographs of me in the shop and my wife was helping with me, and you know, and kind of it was all becoming kind of a bit of a thing this little box. It had eight foot frontage, but it went back in a big room so it was a bit big at the back, so it was kind of bigger than I ever thought it was, in the basement, this shop. Talking about Kingly Street is what the word I was – Kingly Street.

What were the sort of…

Twenty-two Kingly Street.

…dimensions of the shop?

Well the front of the shop was only about seven foot across; like a window and a door. And it was very narrow, but at the back it opened up into a big area.

How big?

Well, twice the, thirty per cent bigger than this room.

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So, in feet?

Twenty by eighteen or something like that. You know, put a bit of stock there, whatever. And at the beginning I don’t think I had the stock to put in the back room, I only had the front bit, but you know, you gradually expanded out. I used to buy these little bits of furniture and stuff as well. Paint them all like, paint them red and green stripes and things, little chest of drawers and you know, it was a sort of sixties look wasn’t it, when you think about it.

Could you sort of describe how your time was divided between going out and finding the furniture and…

Well I’d go out, my wife run the shop. We had to quickly get an assistant, so you know, we had an assistant in the shop. Then I’d maybe go out on a run for the day and then’d be there two days and you come and go. Also then I had a partner, another guy come in with me, which is… but anyway, he come in with me. ‘Cos he had two hundred and fifty quid or something. And then, so we’d go off, he’d go off, like you know we’d go off together buying these bits. And it sort of grew out of that. Then Christmas come, sixty-six, and by then I was going to the UFO Club and I was into all that hippy thing and all that kind of West Coast music and you know, freak-outs and dropping acid and all that started up. So by the end of the sixty-six you’d have like the acid, somebody called the Acid Queen come round who had all like tabs of LSD in a sort of umbrella and you bought them for ten shillings each. [laughs] All that business, you know, and it kind of, it changed and I thought oh, we’re gonna paint this shop, we’re gonna paint the whole of the back of the shop black so no-one can see anything. And then I thought well – no actually, then the fringe stuff come after that, that’s true, then I put all that up, I remember. Then it was boutique purple and magenta which were the colours of the time and I put them on a shade outside like a, you know, a Dutch blind. [interference on recording] Then I went to Liberty’s up the road and bought a good record player. Still didn’t have a hi-fi system really, only had a… so we put that there, playing The Velvet Underground or whatever. And the lights, and I used to flash the lights so when they’d go to the back room, the lights were flashing and The Velvet Underground and they couldn’t see the clothing but they still

Tommy Roberts Page 210 C1046/12/20 bought it. And it was a big magic time, wonderful. I thought oh, really, all the things I’ve wanted all my life, here it is. And I used to wear a great big long kaftan; velvet with all silver roses all over it, to the floor and I really went for it, you know really… I really liked that time. It was only a short time but it was good. Then…

What else were you wearing?

Guys used to wear it in jobs, in ordinary jobs and I used to wear badges like ‘This is the first day of your life’ and all this kind of thing. And they come in and they wanted to get a kaftan and I’d sell a set of beads, bells – Indian bells – Indian blanket kaftan, take their shoes off, put their suit in a bag, throw their suit in the dustbin, walk out, say they’re never gonna go to work again. I mean it was a magic period, people used to do those things. And then go in the park and lay in the park with flowers and taking LSD and – it didn’t last long, but it was a period for that, great period. There wasn’t many shops – there was us, there was the antique market in Chelsea Antique Market, they was doing it. There was a few shops like Hung on You, there was a few shops. But we was doing all the – and I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet which was doing all this uniform, but the uniforms were dropping off then. Then a young guy says, and he come in, he used to make these kaftans out of these Indian blankets and I bought them and people used to come in with sort of Chinese… I used to go to the Chinese wholesalers, buy little Chinese kind of little jackets, with like yin yang symbols on and all kind of, that kind of thing. And people would make us a few things. It was the first time ever I got into like where they were making for me, clothes, and then I got into making them myself because I want bright satin shirts with all frills, so I got someone to manufacture some shirts for us. And people like Jimi Hendrix come in and buy – you know, before he was famous, ‘cos he used to play, The Bag ‘O Nails Club was next, adjacent to our place. He used to play in there as a session musician and come in and buy the shirts. And you know, the first time we’d have the Walker Brothers and all the groups at the time. Liberace came in and bought sort of a uniform. I mean it was a sort of magic time really. Everyone who was famous had to – Bee Gees was always in there, you know, half their life was spent hanging about, you know. There was all that. London, Carnaby Street, whatever, yeah. Although I wasn’t Carnaby, I was a bit more kind of – they liked it ‘cos it was a bit… Carnaby Street wasn’t hippy you see, it hadn’t got on to it. We was the first shop where they were doing all those things. But we

Tommy Roberts Page 211 C1046/12/20 wasn’t the mainstream, so then we got the lease and we moved round into Carnaby Street. This guy who was a partner wanted, desperate to move and I liked where I was, but anyway, I went along with him, easygoing me, and we opened a shop, bigger shop in Carnaby Street.

Who was your partner?

A chap called Charlie, Charlie. Don’t want to mention… you know, too much of it or, you know.

Could you sort of talk about how much you were aware of Carnaby Street and the development of that?

Well, I had been up there – I used to work round the corner from there in 1957. I had a little job, the one I talked to you about, the Community Plate. But it wasn’t then, it was just you know, there was nothing to do with any of that. But then I went in about 1962 and there was a couple of shops there. Don’t think John Stephens was there, or was he there? Maybe there. And you know…

Who was…

…and I bought a couple of tee, I bought a striped t-shirt with some things and then all the hipster pants and it was started by sixty-five or sixty-four. Sixty-five it was starting to really be a centre for tourists as well, you know. I mean it was crowded out with scooters and minis and people in the shops, it was very exciting. Music was playing out the shops, it was you know, it was kind of quite exciting really. And then I went there and I thought oh, I like… you know, and then I thought I wouldn’t mind being involved in this and then that’s when I saw this little shop round the corner and I thought I’m gonna try and do that. You know - what it was also, a friend of mine called – he used to present The Clothes Show on the television – Jeff Banks. Jeff, who I used to live underneath in his house in Blackheath, him and his mate, they started a boutique selling French fashions in Blackheath village. Can’t remember now, the name, but I’ll remember that probably next time you come. And it was kind of nice, kind of girl – only like girl’s clothes – smart little

Tommy Roberts Page 212 C1046/12/20 bits of sort of French fashions. Mini skirts and things. Little sixties boutique, you know. Had a proper sixties look about it. Victorian round table in the middle with all the kind of shoe, like some shoes on it and things and it was – what was it called? Anyway, I thought ooh, I envied it. Ooh I’d like that, you know, I sort of envied it, I thought that’s really clever and I was a bit jealous. Not in a horrid way, but I thought oh, I’d like to have done it, you know. Anyway, so I sort of put it in my head really. Although what we ended up was totally different to what he was doing. They ended up buying our posters off us ‘cos they wanted to bring that image back to Blackheath and we had the image and whatever. But you know, and I think that put it in my head. That’s why I went back up there to look round for somewhere and I saw this shop. And it was already implanted in my head, this boutique. But you know, this woman’s, you know this friend’s boutique in Blackheath was, I was a bit jealous he had a boutique and I thought I’d like a boutique. But, I had to do the children… my main thing had been the children, ‘cos that’s all I, the only stock I had was all these, leftover from this childrenswear firm that had gone broke that I’d done. So you know, and I knew it wasn’t right and I kind of thought well at least I can open with these bits and maybe make a start, but as it so happened, never did. Threw them away ‘cos we got into the second-hand and what I’ve just described to you. So it evolved.

You said that he had a’ boutique’ in Blackheath?

Well you called it boutique, that’s when the name first become, sixty-four they would be called boutiques, weren’t they? So it was a boutique, era of the boutique.

Why were they being called ‘boutique’?

Well I think it was a French name, thought of as a bit sort of chichi and then the young girl, a woman liked going to a boutique wouldn’t they? You know, didn’t want to go to the department store did they, or Marks and Spencer’s, they wanted to go into a boutique. And it just sort of took off and you know, Mary Quant’s boutique and you know, it become a thing and I thought I would like, you know, I liked it. Kind of fashionable and nice people and you know. But my thing, it all ended up a bit more hard-edged, a bit more – but though it was really, you wouldn’t have got away with it in the summer what I was doing, it was too strong, in a funny way. Not till later, then they were all those things like

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Head Shops and all these people selling all this drug paraphernalia in the thing. But we used to have all those things ‘cos people used to sell it to us, like pipes and I used to buy opium pipes just ‘cos I thought they looked nice.

For somebody who doesn’t know about Carnaby Street, who was somebody like John Stephens?

He was the main man, he was the one who started Carnaby Street. And you know, he had – menswear really. And he had a shop in Carnaby Street and then he got two and then somebody else opened a shop and it was a whole street of shops. And it was Carnaby Street and it was on the tourist, it was the main tourist attraction - by 1968 it become the main, it overtook the Tower – I think it was, the Tower of London was one and Carnaby Street was two. It had overtaken everything – the Houses of Parliament, everything as a tourist venue by sixty-eight. The whole world was going there to look at it. But course by then it was finished for me, ‘cos it wasn’t smart, it wasn’t groovy was it, it was tourists all coming and wanting to, I don’t know, that’s where you would have made millions if you’d done it ‘cos you’d have sold ‘em all a Carnaby Street postcard and the novelty. But course I wasn’t interested in that. When I’d been in Carnaby Street I bought a fabulous set of Chinese wedding costumes, you know, I think in a saleroom. Wonderful things, with like pink pompom headdresses and wonderful embroidery. A Chinese wedding, about four or five of them, that was my window display when I opened there. The shop was painted very dark purple and this Chinese display and it was so different to anything else down the street, but course unfortunately we did sell it all, but we didn’t really hit the, none because it was, most of the people by then were tourists coming in the coach party. They wouldn’t you know, they wouldn’t have understood it. We did, we did sell lots and lots of things, course we did. ‘Cos we’d sold all the kaftans and it was becoming a bit, by yeah, end of sixty-eight it was becoming a bit mainstream all that.

Who were your early customers though?

Where?

At Kleptomania?

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Right. I dunno; Graham Nash; Dave Dee, Dozy, Mick and Tich. The Who. Ringo Starr and Maureen Starr, wife. Liberace. I ain’t finished yet. The Walker Brothers. These are people I can remember. The Bee Gees. Lulu and people like that. And also Dusty Springfield and her brother, Tom Springfield. Oh loads. Countless, loads, everyone who was you know, anyone. Cliff Richard. Not much him, he was a bit too, didn’t really like anything. But the group did, the other lot, you know, the backing group, they bought things. Jimi Hendrix of course ‘cos he played at the – I used to make him some frilly… he started to get into stuff ‘cos he was only, when he first come in he was wearing his old army overcoat and everything. But he was session, doing sessions next door and then Hendrix was doing sessions and making things and it wasn’t like two months, Hendrix was the famous man in the world. It was all overnight. All as quick as that it happened, things like that. As quick as that. Hendrix particularly. He liked it in there, he used to sort of, you know. They used to like it ‘cos they felt at home, it was a bit kind of with it and the music and the style and the look and you know, it sort of was a bit magic for people.

What was Hendrix like?

Very, very, very charming, quiet. Very, very charming and quiet. Thank you. I said I’ll make…

[End of Track 20]

[Track 21]

… I made two frilly shirts. Well thank you very much, it’s very kind of you and all… And he bought an Af… and then a guy come from Afghan… from Iraq or Afghanistan with those Afghani kind of coats, those sheepskin that smelt, you know, with the embroidery and little jackets and coats, and he bought one of those. He bought three of them, little waistcoat things. I went and bought a white one. Saw a lot of them white Afghani coats, they were great with the fur. Sheepskin turned inside out, you know, they were white. They were expensive. They were expensive then ‘cos they come all the way

Tommy Roberts Page 215 C1046/12/21 from Af… I think they were about twenty-eight pound those bloody coats. But people used to put deposits on them and you know, but who else? Lots of, you know, I’m trying to think. Lots of people.

What about The Walker Brothers for example, what were they like?

Well I remember them ‘cos they were, first time that caused… funny, with all these famous people it was only one or two who caused a scene in the street. The Walker Brothers did. I mean they must have been walking [inaudible] ‘cos some girls followed ‘em in, screaming, and in two seconds the whole – I had to lock the door – ‘cos the whole of the street was all screaming young girls. I remember that, it was the first time I’ve experienced that. That was The Walker Brothers. And the other one that caused it was Liberace, he couldn’t walk down the street. The parking meter lady would come and try and kiss him and, that was a scene, you know. There wasn’t that many made a scene. David Bowie a lot ‘cos his girlfriend at the time used to work in there as an assistant in the shop. He wasn’t famous, but David’s girlfriend – well he had umpteen girlfriends – but at the time helped my wife in the shop. So he would be, sort of come round to collect her or something like that, you know. So he was about.

What was her name?

Angie. Not Angie. Her name was Angela, although he married an Angie Bowie, her name was Angela. Yeah. Kind of remember that.

So did you get to know…

But he didn’t buy anything much ‘cos he didn’t have any money, you know.

Did you get to know him at that point?

Yeah. I kind of knew him, I knew him, oh he knows me, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. I sort of know them, yeah.

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What’s he like?

Kind of, well he got into super super stardom, everyone changes. You know, it’s different. But very nice, come from Beckenham, I sort of knew where he come from and chatting, you know. Little bit special, I thought he was, I thought if he gets the right record and that he’s gonna make it, this bloke. Which he did, didn’t he? You know, then he had a hit didn’t he, 1969, but that was later.

When you say, ‘little bit special’, what do you mean by that?

Well I think he was very aware of art and things, and look and he was one of them, you know and style and whatever. Like me, but I think I was, I think I was in front of them all really in that, ‘cos I think I was the king of all that really. Not the king of it, that’s a stupid word, but you know, all those sort of guys, that’s why I know ‘em ‘cos they always used to come to me for bits and I always had them bits. Truth of it. There was no other shop like it.

What were some of the other shops that were around?

Well they’d just sell like your teenager’s fashions, you know. Hipster trousers and stuff the teenagers all you know, mod stuff and things. But this would, I was a bit different. The mods were changing, the mods were the mods or the mods who wanted to be like The Who and everything, they were changing into this kind of hippy, kind of psychedelic. Then we went psychedelic and all that, you know. Then there was all sort of, then the flashing lights, the strobe light. In fact, I didn’t like anything that sold in the shop. If it was a bad seller I liked… when it sold too well, just when other people were gonna earn a fortune out of it I’d say I don’t want any more of those. ‘Cos I was obsessed with being the grooviest shop. Couldn’t have anything that was a good seller, ‘cos it was too for the general public, too for the ordinary people. I didn’t want any ordinary people in the shop, didn’t like them, didn’t want Norman Normal. I don’t care if I suffered, I don’t care, I just didn’t want them. I only wanted the right people. I made the shop difficult to go into. Dark and foreboding and, you know. ‘Cos I liked that.

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So, did you have customers?

Couldn’t do it today, but I mean… mm?

Did you have customers who weren’t famous or trying to be?

Oh yeah, of course, lots of customers, of course. Yeah, of course. No, customers, they put a deposit on something, come the next week ‘cos they couldn’t, you know, whatever. Oh, loads of customers, mm.

But who would they be, the ones who weren’t…

Oh well, people who were hip, I suppose would be the word, you know, they knew what was right and everything. As I say, there was two or three – I wasn’t the only shop. There were shops in Chelsea, but round there certainly was. They just liked it, we played the right records. If, I’d go to a shop, man who imported the records from California, the, you know, the psychedelic you know, latest records and make sure I could play the records, everything was right.

You’ve mentioned The Velvet Underground…

Yeah, well I just love The Velvet Underground, that’s all.

Why did you love them particularly?

I went to New York in sixty-eight to see The Velvet Underground. When they were just, you know, Max’s Kansas City and that, you know.

What was that like?

Warhol. I think they were fantastic, you know. In fact they didn’t play very much, a bit disappointing ‘cos I don’t think they actually played, they were all standing round talking and no-one had bothered to play. And I kind of went there and you know, whatever, I

Tommy Roberts Page 218 C1046/12/21 thought… no, it’s just my favourite, I just loved that. And then I sort of met John Cale afterwards and – funny bloke, quite unfriendly. But I just loved that you know, it was wonderful, wonderful.

What was it about their music and…

Just ‘cos it was so kind of out there, you know. I’ve been on heroin and all that, you know, the songs and just totally going free, just scraped away anything. You know, in the end like Sister Ray Said, it was [inaudible] I don’t know, I thought it was just fantastic. Mind you, I loved the White Rabbit by the other group, that was a fantastic, Grace Slick singing it.. You know and… there were a lot of great groups. I mean you just heard the new record by – first one I bought was Frank Zappa actually, Mothers of Invention. But that was really strange and people couldn’t take that. I used to play that in there. And then after that they started to roll in, Love, the Gappa [ph] and all the group, you started to get it, all the music started to come. And about a year later then they, all the shops had it, they were imported, see. So you couldn’t get them. I used to get them and play them. Pay extra ten shillings for the record ‘cos it was imported direct from America. All that was important. Important for that shop. The look and the theatre of it, the actual, you know you weren’t, selling clothing is it? It’s still not, even today, it’s not just about clothing. Or, unless you buy, let’s go to the discount store and buy something ‘cos it’s cheap… but if you wanted to get something together it’s not just about selling the clothes, it’s about giving a style, a feeling of things, isn’t it? Lot more to it really. So, all the old things gradually dropped away, like the you know, I used to do some odd bits of furniture and pine and all that, all dropped away and the clothing took the predominance.

But things like the furniture and the penny farthing that you mentioned…

That was an earlier era, didn’t go. I think we sort of cleared it, we used to have wind-up horn gramophones and all that kind of thing. Well that was a kind of sixty-four, sixty-five, it was that sort of swinging London era wasn’t it? You know, Blow Up, that film and all that. You know, that was another era and that had slightly gone and by the end of sixty-six it was this new thing. And I used to sell the grow your own pot kit and things. In fact the coppers come, you know, we had to stop selling. You had a box with seeds in, you know,

Tommy Roberts Page 219 C1046/12/21 not cannabis, what are they called, you know? And sort of earth and a – you know, like grow your own pot kit. Yeah, I remember selling that. Psychedelic goggles. These are clever, this bloke used to buy these things then he’d come in with things. He never wore any – always had bare feet this guy, used to make a few things for me. And he’d get like rubber swimming goggles, take ‘em out and put these kind of – you know when you look through a kaleidoscope thing, he put those in the thing so when you walked you kind of didn’t know whether you was upside-down and psychedelic – all little funny lines like that, yeah. It was clever of people to you know, do these things.

Who was that who made the goggles?

I don’t know. I never see him, he’s just one of those weird people you’d see and they come and go, don’t they? I mean you’d see things and think, God that’s clever and then you never see the person and you don’t know what happened, they just go.

So, somebody like that would come into your shop?

Yeah, ‘cos it was a shop to sell, you know, you’d think we’ll make those and sell them, it’d be good, and who d’you sell ‘em to? You can’t go and sell ‘em to Audrey’s shop in Carnaby Street, they’d think it was ridiculous. But they could come and sell it to me, ‘cos they’d know we was, knew what they were on about.

And when you sold them, how would you sell them, how would you promote these items?

Just hang them up, put a sign on it, ‘psychedelic goggles’ and people go, ‘Wow man, look at this. This is fantastic, I’m gonna have to buy these’. And out the door they’d go, go wobbling up the street. And I’d say, ‘Well you can’t buy ‘em unless you walk to the end of the street with ‘em on’ and that, you know. They love all that, you know. Badges we used to sell, the badges. That took off, kind of big thing on the badges. Bells and beads, beads. Still tie dye up the trousers, the sailors’ trousers. Make the satin, you know the shirts. What else did we make? Started making some dresses and clothes and we used to make kind of – sold another thing, I sold loads of it. It was like a sort of kaftan thing, had sort of big sleeves [laughing] like that. It had a great big symbol on the front, like yin and

Tommy Roberts Page 220 C1046/12/21 yang or some other, you know, like a giant big symbol or something, like an Eastern mystical sort of symbol, yeah. They like all that. You know, all these things. Velvet trousers, I used to sell the nice panne velvet trousers, which is a shiny silk velvet type, panne velvet trousers. We had great colours like emerald green, purple, black, of course that was always the main colour was black. Wonderful colours; bright orange. Crushed velvet was another one. Belts. Didn’t go in for the boots. Did we have a few handmade… a few handmade boots in there but they were very expensive. They were like thirty, you know, been like eight hundred pound in today’s money to go and buy a pair of those boots. I always liked to have a pair of those with all appliqué stars and moons on them, you know, wonderful things. Pop star buy ‘em, yeah. You know, T Rex buy one or something. But that’s, was a trade for all that, you know, they was expensive. They are. And that was that, psychedelic, UFO Club. Me dressed in a big long, you know in a kaftan. Ah, can imagine, I’d wear sort of make-up sometimes. I get, my hair was quite long and I’d tease it up and put little bits of silver paper all in it and things like that. Real, real out on the edge stuff, you know. Really going for it. Girls’, women’s boots from that shop. I used to have great boots, sort of crippled me, I don’t know if it was because it was difficult for me to zip ‘em up the side, but they’d have again like lovely colours, like bright red, blue, yellow. Stack heel boots and they were from that shop – ah, I can’t remember now, but you know. But most blokes buying those women’s boots, you know. Uncomfortable but you know, that’s part of it, isn’t it? So you can imagine, that was the twirl of it all. And course, unfortunately a lot of people got into the drugs and they were coming to work stoned, they were stoned. They were all on acid. Two coming in to work in the shop were on acid. Take a trip before they go in the door. No. Then that all got out of hand and it spoilt it a bit. I mean I did if I went to a club or go to the park, I remember going to the park, you know they used to have shows in Hyde Park, special things and you’d go round the cannabis, free, physical free cannabis, gathering of the heads, that’s right. And that was in Hyde Park, it was a fantastic sort of do. Yeah, all that kind of thing. Mick Farren on the door of the UFO and go down there and see them, they’d just started. Set the controls to the Heart of the Sun, that group, you know. The Wall. Couple of very famous groups. The Wall as an album they did, concept album. You know, before that.

Pink Floyd?

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The Floyd, yeah. Yeah, you’d see the Floyd down this place, this basement in Tottenham Court Road. There was only a few people knew about it, it had just started. Mark – who died recently – he was clever… Scotsman. Boyle, Mark Boyle. The Mark Boyle Lightshow. You know, oil and water mixed, that show and all that, he invented that, that man. The Boyle Family – have you heard them? Yeah that’s him. He died recently. You know, he used to go anywhere in the world and drop a pin on the map and wherever that pin went, that’s where they went and did a image of that bit of space on the floor. Clever. Yeah. The son come in, I saw him recently, he gave me a, dedicated a book that his father had written, you know, subscribed to me and all that. Quite nice, innit? Mark Boyle.

So, did you know Mark Boyle?

Mm. Well, vaguely, I weren’t his mate, but I knew him, yeah. Funny bloke. All that psychedelia and he never ever, ever, ever took a drug in his whole life, would never. Scotsman, you know. Married the same wife all their life, son and daughter. The Boyle Family, they become an art thing. Very clever he was. Clever man he was. But he’d be back down there, great records – Pink Floyd, UFO. You know, the club and all the events happened. I think I…

[End of Track 21]

[Track 22]

Right, ready? Okay. So it’s the twelfth of September 2005, interview with Tommy Roberts. Last time, at the very end of the last session you mentioned going to the UFO Club.

Yes.

And seeing Pink Floyd.

Yes.

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And you mentioned the Mark Boyle Lightshow. The Boyle Family will be of interest to other people in the future, so could you describe the Lightshow that you can remember.

Well I think yes, it was Mark and his wife – I can’t think of the name – and they used to have a kind of, sort of gantry, like scaffolding and set on it he’d have his projector and slides; oil and water, coloured oil and water slides. And they’d project to a screen behind the live band who were on the stage and it just kind of, to my – I mean it didn’t go all the evening, but I think there’d be like an hour and a half of that while the band was playing. I just remember it with Pink Floyd particularly. Used to be a slightly strange band then, The Creation, it was a band that I think they used to paint a picture while they were on the stage. And The Action, used to smash things up before the, like The Who. I’m trying to think who else was down there. I mean I, most of that psychedelic music of course was from West Coast of America, was American really. So you know, you’d have loved to have seen Love or one of those groups playing, but of course they didn’t come over in those days, not until later. But the Pink Floyd and I really can’t think of much else, but there must have been others as well, I’m trying to think. Donovan? No, I think it was just a little bit before his time. Pink Floyd, it seemed to go with Mark Boyle, Pink Floyd. Did Jimi Hendrix play down there? If he did, he would have only been there as a session ‘cos it was just before him being famous anyway. It was just before all that really, late sixty- six.

Do you know how Mark Boyle came to be involved in that club?

I don’t really know that. He must have done that Lightshow, had an exhibition or a – he must have done it perhaps in an art installation. Something like that he probably did it and somebody saw it and – Miles or Indigo Bookshop or somewhere like that and those people were connected with the UFO and they probably got him to do it down there. Oh! I think they did it in, he might, in America they did it. There was a guy there doing it in there, in a family – the Avalon Ballrooms in San Francisco. Perhaps it come from that, I can remember they did it there as well. But perhaps he was an English version of that but I’m not sure whether he come first or San Francisco Avalon Ballroom concerts come first, I don’t know.

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How did you know about what was happening in San Francisco?

Kind of did. I had a friend who went out there to – he sort of immigrated out to Haight Ashbury in 1965 and I’d get vague reports about what was going on. It sounded very exciting and interesting. And of course it all, and all that come to fruition end of sixty- five, sixty-six and you, I mean you read about it. There wasn’t much information with things like that. You kind of had to, it was a kind of, often those things, they’re kind of on a ground… people tell each other or somebody gets a letter or a phone call or whatever. You may well buy a record, you’d read the back of the LP cover. The information come from bits and suddenly you realise, it’s this kind of hippy thing and then it comes across. It’s not like today it’s instant, it’s not instant. If it was happening in San Francisco you’d see it on the television that night or being a new youth culture explosion, it’s instantly round the world. You’ve got to remember in those days if there were, if you wore kind of like dandy fashions, the regency look, velvet and panne velvet and frilly shirts in the Kings Road in sixty-six, you know, it would take two years to get out to you know, New York would have it the year after or something, it wouldn’t be a week later. It took a long time for things to filter out, much longer.

So, it sounds like word of mouth rather than…

Word of mouth or a little bit you know, perhaps someone bought, went perhaps down the Kings Road and bought a velvet suit from Hung on You and a few pieces of clothing and then they’d go over to New York and they’d take it with them and people would say, oh where d’you get that man? I want one of those. Da, da, da, they might write to the shop or next time over say, well if you’re going to London please get me this in that shop. It filters out. Then a mag… then a magazine will pick it up or I mean certainly with London, Swinging London and all that, it was picked up by – was it Time Life magazine, wasn’t it? And they coined it, Swinging London, all that Carnaby Street and you know, it suddenly exploded. It become in magazines in America and all over the world, in Europe. And course, by sixty-six the magazines with a photographer and a journalist were coming to Carnaby Street to take photographs. Like we used to have a, we would be, a Swedish newspaper we’d be in or a magazine from, a German magazine or a, American magazine. It was kind of, they would pick up, it would sort of – once it had spread out, but it took a

Tommy Roberts Page 224 C1046/12/21 little bit of time to spread out that was all. And now if a fashion’s in fashion you can get it anywhere in the world, it’s distributed everywhere. But if people are making, you know those days if you made some I don’t know, the right kind of clothes and everything, you made ‘em for that shop, that… you didn’t make ‘em in enormous wholesale amounts. Plus the economics, you didn’t have the money to go and buy rolls of fabric to make loads of things. So people used to copy it. You’d have it for six months and somebody in wherever, abroad, would copy it and it would gradually filter out that way. But the difference was that they wanted their things from Carnaby Street, that’s where, you know they wanted to come to London, they felt it was happening here and they wanted the things and clothes from there. And it kind of, if there was a label at the time, like a Carnaby label, perhaps they would have bought that in Hong Kong or all over the world, they would have bought a label but of course there wasn’t labels then. Haute couture in Paris or a Christian Dior tie or something like that, but you know, Yves St Laurent Chanel jumper or whatever, but it wasn’t, the youth culture was nothing to do with young people in it, didn’t exist. Hard to express, I don’t know whether it made any sense or not.

So, it was more about Carnaby Street as a place rather than particular designers?

Well there was no, no designers come from Carnaby – there wasn’t any designers, it was just as I told you before, it was just blokes who’d perhaps had a stall in Edmonton and got the money together to open a shop in Carnaby Street. It wasn’t a place for design, but what it was, it was a hub of what was fashionable at the time. There was John Stephens, he might have done hipster trousers. There was a few things, anyone was doing the latest bits, it would be a combination, and the retailers would say oh, I want those, would you do a few for this shop? So it became the place where people went for those clothes and the place overtook the clothes in a way, it became the place to go. In fact by about the end of the sixties it was rather irrelevant, the clothes. You know, people wanted a souvenir, they wanted a mug what said, ‘I’ve been to Carnaby Street’ or ‘Carnaby Kid’ on the back of a t- shirt. You know, it wasn’t the clothes, the clothes become an irrelevance by about sixty- eight.

Who was your friend who went to San Francisco?

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Oh, he was a guy I knew at school. Bo, we used to call him Bo ‘cos he was a bohemian. Like when I was saying, Bo Jennings or something, I can’t remember his name, and he kind of, off he went to San Francisco. You know, I was very jealous of that.

What happened to him?

No idea. Probably… no idea at all. I mean I couldn’t think of it, I can’t… no idea. I had another friend who went to San Francisco, but he wasn’t, he went a little bit earlier but he wasn’t involved in that at all, I think he got a job in the Wells Fargo bank or something as a clerk, in San Francisco, but I don’t know what happened to him either. Oh he got married, he got married. Last I heard she was head of the PTA, Parent Teacher Association of Oakland, California or wherever it was, I don’t know, but I lost touch. They did come back about three years later, but you know, that’s how it is.

And did you ever go to San Francisco?

Oh yeah, I went in sixty-nine. Mm, I went to San Francisco. It was just, it was too late then, you know. For that thing and all that kind of Haight Ashbury you wanted to be there in sixty-six, sixty-seven. Again, it was a funny thing. By the time everyone all round the world got, was interested in it, course it was finished. [laughs]

The Lightshow though. When you, for example when Pink Floyd were playing, would Mark Boyle be improvising along with the music?

Yeah I think so, yeah. Putting different slides in, different thing, you know obviously, I would imagine as the music was you know, kind of get the colours and the look, distortions and course it made – it distorted it all. Then there was a funny thing, like all that, you couldn’t you know, it’s not like a group where you’d want to put the spotlight on the lead singer is it, ‘cos you couldn’t see their faces anyway, you know, it was just the mood of the thing. And strobe lighting’s the same, he used flashing lighting and you know, he just made the mood. I mean if you was being a pop star you wouldn’t want it all, any of that would you, you’d want a nice big spotlight on your face wouldn’t you, singing. But there was a sort of antithesis with all that.

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And what was the UFO Club like?

It was just a basement, I think it was an Irish dance club in the daytime, you know, diddly diddly music. But a kind of, one evening a week on a Friday they’d, seven o’clock they’d start, perhaps about nine o’clock they’d open. Mick Farren of the Social Deviants on the door and it was UFO and it was the first place to do any of that kind of music and you know, play the records and just hippies and people tripping out and LSD and dressed up in kaftans.

What did the club look like inside?

Well just a, you didn’t look at the walls ‘cos if you had Mark Boyle’s Lightshow you couldn’t see any walls anyway. I never really noticed, I suppose if it was all you know, with just plain strip lighting in the middle of the day it looked like a square basement with a sort of hole in the wall where you can pass out a bottle of Coca-Cola through it, you know. I mean it was a nothing thing, totally nothing. There was no sort of décor or anything, nothing like that at all. It was a feeling, it had nothing to do with décor.

And what would you wear?

Different things. I had a wonderful jell… is it a jellaba? Like a kind of velvet long gown I’d wear. I’d have the kaftans as well. This embroidered black velvet big long gown. Red suede shoes, velvet trousers - black shiny panne velvet trousers. Maybe underneath just what they call grand… three-button, tie-dyed granddad vest. Mind you I think I wouldn’t have done that, I think I always had something a bit better than that. Beads, beads, lots of beads.

Could you describe the beads?

Yeah, I used to buy ‘em in the Indian shop and the Chinese shop. Chinese, there used to be like a Chinese – Chinacraft, I can’t… they were and they used to sell all these kind of sets of beads and we used to sell ‘em in the shop. And also Indian beads, I think Indian

Tommy Roberts Page 227 C1046/12/21 wholesalers I suppose, at the time. And betel nut beads from betel nuts and God – oh silver as well, ‘cos Indian silver and everything was like – they were very cheap, I mean probably like two shillings each or something. Bell, would wear a bell. That was a whole thing, wearing a bell. I’m trying to think what I used to wear. Anyway, this big long kaftan. Oh chiffon scarves and things; there’s a lot of floating, bits of fabric floating around, that kind of feeling. And I can’t think of anything else. Oh I had, I did have a sort of fringed leather Red Indian jacket I’d got from when I used to clear those theatrical costumiers. I got a kind of North American Indian – although it wasn’t, it was probably from sort of you know, kind of you know, a show in the West End in the thirties I would have thought – but it was very good quality and it had wampum beading embroidered across it and nice fringes, it was soft suede. And I wore that occasionally.

What’s wampum beads?

Wampum is just a thing where Red Indians, it’s a way of, it’s one of their – it’s a folk art. I think it’s a way they’re actually saying something as well using beads. I think, but I’m not… have to go to the Horniman’s Museum in Forest Hill where they have all that stuff and I’m sure the man’ll explain it all to you.

And what was your hair like?

Oh long hair. Not that long actually, I suppose down to sort of my shoulder blades, but then it was very, very long. Well long hair in sixty-six was down to your collar. Down to your sort of, anything beyond that was well, unbelievably long hair. There was actually, there was a group called – I always remember, they always had very long hair and they were called… can’t think what they were called now. It might come to me as I talk to you. They were really good. I can’t think of the name of them. The Pretty Things. They were called The Pretty Things. They all had long hair. There was one or two people who had long hair since the beginning of the sixties, actually. There’s always one or two, but course, you know, if you wanted a job or lived at home you couldn’t have long hair could you? I mean you’d have been thrown out. And then there was that thing about long hair and if you had a job in a factory, you’d have to wear a hairnet and you’d be a laughing stock ‘cos you’d have a hairnet on. And it was a big scene, hair was an enormous scene in

Tommy Roberts Page 228 C1046/12/21 the late sixties and sixties, it was an enormous scene. Boys getting thrown out of the house and mothers crying and outrageous, and lots of places you wouldn’t go in, if you had that long hair you couldn’t go into a smart hotel or – not that you would do at that age, but a restaurant or, you know, you just wouldn’t be allowed in with the long hair. It was only later on that it become acceptable.

So…

America I’d say, if you went to emigrate you had sort of shoulder length in New York in 1966 or something, well people, it would give people a heart attack and there’d be all people with big red faces shouting ‘outrageous, outrageous’ and you’ve never seen such a disgusting sight in all their life and how have you allowed, you know… people think you all were sort of you know, being a tramp. America, very funny like that, very conservative. Lots of places in the seventies in America you could never work if you had a beard, about long hair, you know. Anyone with a beard wouldn’t be allowed to work in the place ‘cos it would have been sort of looked as a leftwing kind of sort of thing, a beard. And you know, then for fashion for businesses in America wouldn’t have anyone with a beard. Long hair don’t even come into it, you know. But, I don’t think that’s worse [?]. [laughs]

Did you have a beard?

I did for a little while. I did have a beard for a little while. Well mostly, believe it or not looking at me now, I’ve spent most of my life clean shaven.

So your hair was down to your shoulder blades…

Well my hair was never really… yeah, but my hair isn’t very good, ‘cos you need a tall, long thin neck to wear beautiful long hair. I haven’t got any neck so it would all stick out and it would look odd, you know. So it kind of… but there was a lot of attention to hair. You’d go to the hairdressers once a week and there’d be like blow-waving and people with you know, with those hairdryers and all that. Hair was a big deal. Cutting it, trimming it, fluffing it up. Hairdressers. Well course it’s always been like that though, mind you, hair

Tommy Roberts Page 229 C1046/12/21 and shoes. Hair and - what you have on your feet and what style your hair is. It’s always been a sign of you know, it’s always been a sign of youth. Not youth, but sign of how stylish one is, isn’t it? Shoes and hair.

Which hairdressers would you have gone to?

Oh, I’d be careful with that. Sweeney Todd’s in Beauchamp Place. Oh yeah, you gotta be careful with that, you wouldn’t go to any old hairdressers. No, there’d be Gary at Sweeney Todd’s, there’d be certain hairdressers. I can’t think of them now, there’d be a few. You know, like where the pop stars go and things like that.

What was Sweeney Todd’s?

Hairdressing salon. Well I think there was Sweeney’s and there was Todd’s. I think Sweeney’s was in Beauchamp Place and later on at World’s End was Todd’s, which was in a house. And that was, you know, that’s where you go and have your hair. ‘Cos you’d chat with people, they’re all kind of the same sort of kind of sort of guys, in the fashion world or pop and you’d get a coffee and chat and it was sort of afternoon innings, going to Sweeney or Todd’s. Yeah. And even, well the hairdressers were stars, yeah.

Such as?

Well I don’t know. You know, Gary at Todd’s who’d do your hair, that was quite, rather a thing. He didn’t do everyone’s hair.

Gary?

I think his name was Gary. I mean you know, he always wore a singlet, a vest with tattoos and things. But if you got Gary, then that was very, very special ‘cos Gary wouldn’t deem to do anyone’s hair unless it was a certain pop star, you know like Keith Richards’ hair he’d do and – don’t think he did Mick Jagger’s hair funnily enough, I think he did Keith Richards’ but not Mick Jagger’s. That’s what it was like, you know. [laughs]

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So, who did you see when you went to the hairdressers, of those famous people?

Ooh, you’d get a Rolling Stone in there. Well they lived up there a bit, they hung around there.

Where is it?

World’s End, top of Chelsea. They’d hang around there. I mean I’m trying to think, you know. Marc Bolan of course, he’d be there. So on and so on. Yeah. What else d’you want to ask me?

And who would you have seen at the UFO Club? Who would have been the other members of the audience?

Well John Lennon went there and people like that. You know, it was again, it was – and also it was, they could go, they were famous, they could go and people wouldn’t really take any notice of them really. You was all part of it together, it was beyond any of that. Again, it didn’t take very long though before it was all… they were queuing up outside to get in and you know, it was only I think about three or four magical months down there before that got taken over and then it moved to the Middle Earth in Covent Garden a little bit later, there was another club, bigger club, Middle Earth. But the golden age wasn’t very long. Then, I think the end of that really was in sixty-seven was the – not the end of it, but for kind of people who really, you started after this to, one of the – after that event the Alexander Pally event in 1967, Free Cannabis Resin or something was it? Big thing they had at Alexander Palace. Ally Pally I think, The Be-In, I think it was called The Be- In. All that thing about smoking banana skins and things like that, all mad stuff. That was a great big event. After that I think that was the end of the golden age of that – it was a year really, just one year really. I would say from September six… end of August, summer sixty-six to summer sixty-seven, autumn sixty-seven and I think, then it become mass and people, everyone was in. Then there was you know, be-ins and rallys in the park and that. I think it was a kind of year, eighteen months and that really was it really.

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So, what would happen from the moment a scene would be good in your eyes until it sort of you know, passed into…

Well, when everyone else started to join in, you know. You know, you didn’t want to share it with loads of ordinary people did you? I certainly didn’t. I only liked it when it was exclusive. Certain type of person. And course, you know it’s like the wider the neck gets of these kind of movements, the weaker it becomes, because what really made it good in the end gets watered down. And then – not that I’m not sort of elitist, in a way everyone should enjoy theirself, but when they’re holding light shows in kind of, out in the prov… all over Britain and – they’re entitled to enjoy theirself of course they are, same as us, but it doesn’t make it the same. And it’s funny, if you lived in Manchester or something, you was really into it, you’d want to travel down to London to go to the UFO and go round the shops in Kings Road or Covent Garden. You know, you’d want to get to the shop they imported the records in London. You know, you’d probably come to… the same as, you know, that’s what’d be great, good thing about it.

So when you say ‘us’, do you mean – how did you see yourself? Where would you…

You know I’m not a hippy, I never really was. I didn’t believe in, I mean it’s you know, I weren’t gonna go and live in a commune was I, or anything, I wasn’t that type of person. But I just liked the thing, it was all things that I really liked that seemed to come of age in a way. I mean bohemianism, dress as you want, be as mad as you want – if you want to wear make-up, you wear make-up, if you don’t, you don’t. All those kind of things that I thought was lurking with a lot of people. Some people see it as a kind of, as you know, love, you know the posters, the psychedelic posters, the art. Lots of aspects to it. Some people would be like the kind of political side would be very important to ‘em or whatever. Being laid back, being cool, I suppose the word they use now innit? Before you were laid back, you know. People who felt like you could do it and people who didn’t feel like you didn’t understand it, it would just be, wouldn’t understand it. You know, they wouldn’t see somebody wonderful in a beautiful kind of, beautiful kaftan embroidered and you know, long hair with kind of bit of dyed colour, they’d see a wonderful kind of image, they’d see someone that probably to their mind looked like Coco the Clown, you know.

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So if you think it’s Coco the Clown you could never get into it. That was the great thing of it really.

When you’re talking about for some people it would have been the politics or being laid back…

It was difficult then if you did dress up a bit like that, ‘cos you know, you’d be asked to leave off the bus and things. People didn’t understand it, it was so, it was so alien, you know. I remember having a car, pulled in at a petrol station, I think I had hair all freaked out with bits of silver paper in it or things and the man wouldn’t serve me petrol. It was a kind of apparition that appeared at his premises, it was gonna taint his garage or something, you know. And being asked to, you know – I kind of got away with it a bit. I just said oh don’t be so stupid to it, but some people they wouldn’t. Course they would be chased down the road, some people it was hell, you know, people pulling their hair and things like that as they walked down the High Street. Men coming up and tugging their hair. You know, ‘What the fuck is this?’ ‘What do you think you are, a fucking tart walking about?’ And you know, it wasn’t all nice. So a lot of people [laughing], it was kind of hard to be like that, in a way. You know, ‘Get off this bus’. ‘This bus isn’t moving’ and all the people looking round in the seats until this item was off the bus ‘cos the bus isn’t going forward with this ‘thing’ sitting on the bus, you know. That’s how it was. Well people had never seen, it was a shock to them, they couldn’t understand it.

So, what…

I’m talking about clothes and appearance now really, you know.

So, bearing in mind that you did have…

So in a way you was, you know, you could only be in central London couldn’t you, or Mayfair or Chelsea or something and live your life, ‘cos you know, if you lived in Welling or something like that or Eltham, I mean it’d be purgatory going home every night on the train wouldn’t it? Dressed up. But course people didn’t, they would have a slight touch of it all, but they’d have their real things under their arm and go to a friend’s house and

Tommy Roberts Page 233 C1046/12/21 change. And then of course you’d have to go by taxi, so it’s quite expensive, so you could only go out once a week or something, you know. If you’re an ordinary person, can’t you? Can’t get taxis every night can you?

What was your…

[End of Track 22]

[End of Section 1] [Track 23]

…experience of that though. I mean…

I kind of, well being as I had a shop and I was selling that and I mixed with all those people and my life was involved, I didn’t have much of that did I? You know, I kind of didn’t need much, I didn’t have to have much of that, I didn’t have much of that.

And where were you living?

I wasn’t gonna to the sort of dancehall in Welling or anything dressed up like that, am I, you know. I had no need to and no desire to, so I kind of, you live in your own circle in a way.

But where were you living at that time?

I can’t remember. I honestly can’t remember. I think I lived in, round Carnaby Street in a room for a while and then I actually lived in Greenwich. But then, time you went home, you drove home, you all lived in Greenwich, you had friends round there, similar friends and went back in the morning so, you know.

So, when did you leave Blackheath?

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I dunno. Well I didn’t, ‘cos I went to Greenwich didn’t I and then I had times when I left for six months and come back. I was there a while actually. I was actually, my place of, my place of residence would have been Blackheath till about 1971 or something.

You mentioned that when you got married you were living in somewhere in Blackheath.

Yeah.

What was that place like?

Oh it was quiet, it was just other people living, you know. Underneath me was a, he lived, the guy who was on the TV, you know he had The Clothes Show, that guy. He was a friend of mine, married Sandy Shaw. He was underneath. Above us was someone else who was – what did he do? Don’t think he did anything really. I can’t quite make out what he did. He got a bit into drugs a bit early and got, ruined hisself really. And it was that sort of thing, you know. That was a bit, no that was a bit, a bit earlier was a bit different, he’d go to the pub and things. He’d go locally, there was a big kind of int… Harold Candles, it was an interesting pub, it wasn’t like a pub. The guy used to put like candles on the tables and make it kind of strange sort of atmosphere and so we used to go there. But that was in Greenwich and he was known as Harold Candles, and things like that.

And what was Jeff Banks like?

Oh Jeff, nice, yeah nice fella. I think there was once he didn’t pay the rent or something and he had to run off and all that, but then we all did that, so we never know who paid the rent so… But I think he, the owner took umbrage with Jeff and I think he got all his stuff in the back of his sports car and chased him down the road. I didn’t pay my rent either much but I seem to get away with it a bit.

Did you know him before you moved into the…

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No. Yes, vaguely yes, very vaguely, yes. But he had this shop over in Blackheath, which I told you before, this boutique.

Can you remember the name?

No. I should be able to remember. I can’t remember it now. They had funny names then, like Trilby Plus One and sort of odd names like that. But it wasn’t Trilby Plus One. It was, oh God – Palisades? No, it wasn’t Palisades. It was a nice name, it was a nice shop. Clever.

And how had you met him?

.Mm?

How had you met Jeff Banks?

I’ve got no idea at all, I can’t remember. No idea. Just did, you know, you knew them people didn’t you? Then I used to know the pop groups and a friend of mine – what was the group? Nashville Teams I think they were called and he come to see me and they made a number one record. And I said, ‘Oh that’s fantastic Barry’ or something, whatever his name was. And then he says, ‘Yeah, yeah’ he said, ‘the manager’s given me this’ and he had a scooter and I already had a car and I thought well, you don’t get much out of it when you get a number one record, do you? I always remember that. [laughs]

I’m interested in how you managed to meet pop stars, fashion designers…

Because I always had the right sort of shop didn’t I, you know I was doing things, they were customers of mine originally and some become friends. You know, I mean if Jimi wanted his, I’d make him his satin frilled shirt, or if it’s, you know, you do. If you’re in Carnaby Street with a shop at that time you do. You know, The Who are gonna come in. I think I had Union Jack fabric, we made some – oh, don’t think I made that famous Union Jack jacket, but you know, I used to make Union Jack shirts and stars and stripes shirts, the flag of the stars and stripes. And one of them, like the Walker Brothers or one of them

Tommy Roberts Page 236 C1046/12/23 went back to America with stars and stripes shirts and when he got off the aeroplane in La Guardia or whatever it is, airport in New York, he got arrested. Kennedy Airport, ‘cos you’re not allowed, it’s defacing the flag. And it was sort of same here with the Union Jack really, there was lots of problems with that. But in the end, in the end they took no notice and that was the end of it. But originally you know, if you wore a guardsman’s – and I said to you earlier before – the hippy thing in the early sixties was all that guardsman uniform thing. Mick Jagger, he wore the guard… and all that and you’d sell all these uniforms, big craze for these army uni… military uniforms. But people used to get arrested for taking the Queen’s uniform in vain and things like that. In fact I’ve been marched down the police station ‘cos I’d have a dummy outside the shop with a uniform on, with a tricorn hat on it and it was an officer’s uniform, guard’s officer’s uniform with the correct buttons on. And he said, ‘Take that down’ and I said, ‘No’ to the policeman. He said, ‘That is contravening regulations, taking the Queen’s uniform in vain. It’s a very serious offence.’ I said, ‘Oh don’t, fuck off, what are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Right, okay’. My head was down, my arm was pulled by the back, two policemen escorted to the police station in Saville Row police station over it all. He fined me a bit, to get off, ‘cos he said well you can have seven years’ imprisonment for it, like sedition, isn’t it called? It’s like, I think sedition’s the only [inaudible] offence left in Britain, I don’t know, but you know. [laughs] But I think about a week later I put the uniform back and nothing else was said and he sort of, in the end they couldn’t be bothered with it all and that was the end of that. That gives you a good idea how all them kind of barriers were broken down in the sixties, it was gradually all eroded away. One or two went to Horseferry Road Magistrates Courts, they was doing this, that and the other. In the end it all got worn away.

But when you…

Not totally, but I suppose they were, oh we’ll let them do that, you know. You know, the barriers between class and thing, it all got eroded slightly. That’s what it was. You know, guard’s officer’s uniform, if it hadn’t been 1966 with the guard’s officer, if it had been 1956 I would have probably have been in Pentonville Prison for three years. But sixty-six it wasn’t and by sixty-seven or whatever, that was it. Change. The changing face of Britain. History, you know. How it changed.

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And were you aware of…

Didn’t come from like the parliament giving kind of, change Acts, a lot of that it came from the street with eroding, eroding what had gone before, the divisions, the sort of concrete walls between glass and the way one behaved and that. Behaviour was changing, it was all changing.

But were you…

You know, you’d have been arrested walking down the road with a big long skirt on as a man wouldn’t you, in 1954? You know, it would have been so appalling, it would have been just so disgraceful, you’d have had to be put in a mental home and locked away. But by 1966 you wouldn’t have been. You know, it changes. If I had worn a – I mean people used to wear like mini skirt, like men used to wear a mini skirt. I mean that was rather extreme, that was extreme even then, but they come in the shop with a mini skirt, two blokes and that, even I was, it even took my breath away a bit. I thought now that’s strong. Well I liked to see it, it was fantastic, but kind of they walked down the road in mini skirts, but you know that was even then, but if they’d done that a few years ago they would have gone into, they would have gone to the Bexley mental home and not come out for twenty years, wouldn’t they, you know that’s the difference.

Would they have been…

Walking down the street.

Would those men have been heterosexual?

I don’t know what they were. They might have been doing it ‘cos it was just for the look. Often people say it wasn’t to do with often, if you’re homosexual, it was to do with shock value wasn’t it? Whether they were heterosexual, I didn’t ask them, you know. Didn’t care really. Perhaps they were you know, perhaps they were two men – they were only young – young, slim twenty-three year old men or twenty-two year old men, but it even surprised me. You know, even that was – I mean I thought it was, you know, I thought

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God, you know that’s good. But even, took my breath away, ‘cos it was in the extreme. You know, it’s just a thing that come into my head for a moment.

But when you’re talking about the class system being eroded and so on, were you actually…

There was a bloke, he used to walk about – he didn’t last that long, you know sometimes you don’t see ‘em any more, don’t know what happens to ‘em, but he walked around as Batman. But he didn’t just be Batman in the party for a giggle with, go to Sevenoaks dressed as Batman in the back of a car for a giggle, he was Batman morning, noon and night, you know. You know, I always admired that sort of thing ‘cos it’s very brave often, to do that, you know. You know, you’re Batman, you’re in a Batman costume go in a working man’s café at six thirty in the morning.

So…

You know, these people take it seriously, they don’t do these things ‘cos it’s a giggle for a party, a university party or something, they’re doing it for their life, their life means it. You know, I always find that very fucking, I find that very brave and that kind of thing. And an admirer of it.

Had you always admired…

But I don’t want to be Bat… you know, I mean I wouldn’t want to be and I can’t see the sense in it, but you know, you don’t know what’s in their head do you?

It sounds like you’d always admired…

It’s like the bloke who always, every rock concert, you know when you have the concert, he’d go up the front and he’d walk about in the total nude for an hour and a half. And he wasn’t, he was very portly and rather unsightly, but you have to admire – you know, I certainly wouldn’t, I couldn’t dream of it, but you kind of have to sort of admire it really in a funny way. You know, you don’t know what goes on in their head, but it’s an act of

Tommy Roberts Page 239 C1046/12/23 extreme bravery. Alright. [laughs] And a girl or something, and a girl you know, walking through, walking down Oxford Street with nothing on. I can remember that in – and it was a sort of art, it was an art project. You know, when you do you know, what do they call it when it’s… When you burn a piano in the back garden or you know, what do you call it? It’s conceptual, not conceptual, it’s, you know it’s that other thing, what do they call that art? D’you know? I can’t think, I don’t know what it is now. You know, when you throw a grand piano off the top of a building and that and you film it, you know, it’s a work of art, it’s a statement of art. It’s not conceptual art, it’s something else. But doing that, I mean it’s brave beyond belief, unbelievable. I mean unbelievable. People, ooh look at that old fucking crumpet and all… I mean can you imagine it, blokes chasing her. But it’s an art thing. I think God almighty, I thought that was extreme again, but I don’t you know, I kind of quite admire them things, you know. I want to get some fags, won’t be a moment.

[break in recording]

Okay. Yeah. So, you mentioned earlier that the class system was being eroded and I was wondering – we can see that from our perspective now, but how aware of it were you at the time d’you think?

Funnily enough, not very much, ‘cos I didn’t ever come across it. Also, if you was doing what I was doing – clothes and then you was kind of a ‘with it’ shop of the time, fashionable – all classes would come and you wouldn’t really be aware of it. And I could be invited to a stately home for a muck about as anywhere else. You know, because you was accepted. But I suppose if you’d been working as a servant in the stately home, you’d be much [laughing] more aware of it, wouldn’t you? Depends on your trade really. I would think if at the time you wanted to be a lawyer or a woman wanted to be a barrister or something she would come across it. Certain chambers certainly wouldn’t have you if you had come from a working class background or even a middle class background. You’d have to have the right, you couldn’t be a stockbroker without the right credentials could you? You couldn’t have a proper job in the City and they certainly wouldn’t have you chairman of the bank through hard industrious work and working your way through the ranks, you know. You might be able to become managing director but you couldn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 240 C1046/12/23 become chairman, you still have to have the right credentials. Even if you didn’t have the ability. I mean it was lots and lots and lots of doors were closed to people, men and women.

And how did you feel about that?

It didn’t come into my orbit, did I? I was a young bloke making bits of clothes and you know, why would I be thinking about that? I wouldn’t really. I suppose some did, I didn’t go to sort of, I mean if I went to Cambridge, which of course I didn’t, but you might come across it again. So you say well, you know, you’d be accepted into that perhaps club, but not that club or, you know in sport, you might not be accepted in the drama society if you didn’t thing – certainly up to the early sixties I would imagine. So you know, if you wanted to progress through and enjoy the full benefits of being at Oxford or Cambridge I would have thought you probably would have come across it if you’d come from the miner’s cottage up in the north of England or something. No? D’you agree? No?

Well, I was thinking about…

Unless you had exceptional ability. Exceptional ability always wins through. Usually. Usually, not always, but it often does. And if you’re kind of witty. And girls have to be good looking wouldn’t they? I mean imagine through a company, I don’t care how many thousand words a minute on the typewriter, if she didn’t look the part, she wouldn’t get the job. But if she had nice legs and everything it didn’t matter if she couldn’t string two words together, she’d get the job. It’s always been the case and it still is and always will be, so don’t worry about that. You know, unless you’re in institutions or something to do with the Government, you go and work for Mr Thing’s, you know, that certainly comes into play with it all. Not as bad as it was, but it certainly probably still features, I would imagine. I don’t know. No, it wouldn’t do ‘cos they get into trouble can’t they, nowadays. [laughs] But you’ve still got to get your foot in the door in the beginning to get to that haven’t you? Not that I’m a, sexist is the word, I’m not at all, but I’m just saying how you know, the reality of that time. It’s not only class through education and in society, it was also girls were disadvantaged weren’t they, against men and things, you know.

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I was thinking…

‘Cos I’m a feminist, always have been.

Are you?

.Mm. Mm. I’m also [laughs], it sounds an old potboiler – race, creed and colour don’t make a difference with ability, the best person should have the job. Firmly believe that. Not saying I want to be mates with them, with the bloke who’s – I mean you know, perhaps I don’t want the Angolan bloke as my best mate, you might not even like the people, that doesn’t come into it. Race, creed and colour – his ability should have the equal opportunity. That’s different to liking and dislking. I think. Is it? Yeah. D’you know what I mean? My opinion. Should have the same chance. I’ve always believed in that. Believed in that. How could someone who’s really good not get the opportunity because… of course liking and disliking does come into it, always has, if you went into the job in the Government or local services or anything. That always comes into it of course, but I suppose that’s life isn’t it? I don’t know. I’m lucky, I really am. I’ve led a life that I haven’t had to come across all that because I’ve always done something for myself in a way. I haven’t had to fight for my – you have to fight of course in business, but in that kind of way where – I don’t think I’d have had the self-confidence to queue up, ringing for the interview and wait in the hall for five, six people, all follow each other in the room, hope you get the job. I don’t think I would have had the self-confidence to do it. I wouldn’t have been any good to it so I had to find the other route. That’s the only reason why, I had to find another way.

‘Cos, for most of the time you’ve been self-employed in a sense?

Yeah, proved necessity in a way, you have to be. Who’s gonna give me a job? No known skills, no known, you know. There’s certain things, disadvantages, there’s advantages, but I’ve not had the opportunity to test that out anyway, ‘cos I don’t think I’d have got a job. So had to do – which is part of the reason, but I’m glad, you know, part of the reason why I did what I did. And I found I had a quite skill and ability to give people, to be a little bit in front of the crowd and a bit pioneering, a bit, come up with what people want. Timing, of

Tommy Roberts Page 242 C1046/12/23 course sometimes you got the timing wrong and it was an abject failure, but sometimes you’d get it right and… You know it’s still right, it’s all right, but it’s timing. Sometimes it’s right, but it’s right a year before it is right. It’s usually right, but perhaps it wasn’t right for that moment, but it would have been right if I’d not done it for another year. Funny that, isn’t it?

When you were talking about the class system sort of changing, it reminded me of people like Mick Jagger and the Pink Floyd and so on who’d come from public school backgrounds and…

Well Pink Floyd had, but Mick Jagger hadn’t.

No?

No, his father was a teacher, PE teacher, father. Semi-detached house. Middle class, Mick Jagger, lower middle class. Keith Richards, more working class. But Mick Jagger more sort of, I would call lower you know, like semi-detached, one of the those thirties built homes on the fringes of London. Probably a family that believed in education and he went to the London School of Economics. He probably had a thing to be a, I don’t know, to be an accountant perhaps or something, I don’t know what, you know. He would have been given that grounding. So… But the Pink Floyd, yeah they went to, I don’t think they went to Harrow and things did they? Lower, I don’t know.

How did you find that you got on with people like that?

Okay, I mean I can’t think of… you know, I mean I didn’t have a problem… I suppose – I’m trying to think really. Some people wouldn’t have been able to see the point of me I suppose, but most people, I’ve not found any problem with that really, in a way, being accepted on different stratas of society as you might say. And I suppose, you know there probably has been occasions where I’ve been rebuffed and sort of slighted, but this second I can’t bring it to mind, but I’m sure there is, you know, course, everyone has.

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When you spoke about your admiration for people who would dress in a very unconventional way, what was your reason for dressing the way that you did?

I always wanted to, I always had a desire to be different. You know, I always used to dress a bit weird and odd and I always found, you know I found clothes interesting and an expression of yourself and it’s just that sort of thing, I never wanted to be part of the pack. I always felt like, you know, I want to be part of the top end of the pack [laughing], if you know what I mean. I found it important. As I said to you before, when things become quite successful and shop sells loads of things and that, I didn’t like it any more, wanted to close the shop and go somewhere else. A sort of inbuilt ruinous affair, you know. Ruination inbuilt in one. Funny that, innit? Never could take advantage of selling thousands of let’s say, if you get all the kaftans let’s say, or something, wonderful seller, let’s get it into every shop in the High Street, you know. I would have been anathema – is that the word – to me, I would have hated that, you know, at the time. Hated it. Didn’t want it in the High Street, couldn’t bear it. Certainly wouldn’t, only buy – and ones, people who supply things to us as well, then it starts to broaden out and this one wants it and you know, other shops want it, then I wouldn’t buy anything off that person again. But best to do that, leave me behind and carry on and get the mass market. ‘Cos my – I wanted it very – or I’d try and change their ideas, I’d say, well do that for me, but I want you to do it this colour or that shape, or just slightly change it. You know. I’d say, I want it in those colours, I don’t want it in the muted colours any more, I want it in bright colours. They’d say well, the browns and the soft beiges are the ones that are selling. I said good, well I don’t want any of them any more, I want it in silver or something, in gold.

Did you ever have more than one shop at one time?

Occasionally have tried it, but never been much successful at that. Oh I think some friends of mine went and opened a shop in… oh he had, yeah a shop in Soho and we was in Carnaby Street and they wanted to do certain clothes the other side of you know, Covent Garden side ‘cos there was a meeting, but I don’t think that worked out, I don’t know. Can’t remember really, what happened to them.

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So, was that somebody that you were working with, or a separate…

No, somebody who knew someone and you know, he would say, got any money to buy… so you’d put stuff in there sale or return and of course invariably, you’d never get the money ‘cos they’d spend it all and that was it, you know. [laughs] It’s par for the course, isn’t it?

You mentioned…

Everything comes to its natural course of an end. Every successful thing, there’s always a downside and upside. Everything comes to its natural end, but if you’re clever you can re- jig it into another look or something. Sometimes you sort of, just a bit fed up with it all and you don’t want to do that. You just want to go on to pastures new. I like pastures new after a period of time.

Were you ever a…

About two years is about my level, limit. About two and a half years, then I start to, then I sort of get into ruinations mode. I go into ruination mode then. Argue with any partners and things like that, you know, make it all grotesque and so they all come to fucking grumble. [laughs]

Deliberately?

Well sometimes it’s sort of half – well I always feel it must be half deliberately. [laughs]

So is it because you get bored?

Yeah. Well I think it’s you want to sort of regenerate yourself, you’re always, one’s always searching for identity or something, you’re searching for something aren’t you? Something in your life that you feel’s not right. Don’t ask me what it is ‘cos I don’t know, you’re searching for something. Not every, you know, most people have got enough sense

Tommy Roberts Page 245 C1046/12/23 to, may feel it, but keep it under control. But I’ve been in a lucky position often that I can do it. And it’s worked.

It sounds like quite a…

I think we’re getting a bit deep here. Supposed to be talking about the cut of trousers, not fucking feelings.

[laughs] Talking about your life.

Hippy headscarves, not deep feelings. No, go on.

It sounds like quite a brave thing to do, to keep like you say, almost ruining one business and then…

Well you know, you work with people then you see I’m fed up with these people, I don’t like them any more, or something happens or you feel you’ve been cheated or let down. I’m quite easy going and people always took advantage I felt, you know, they take advantage. They take the best thing, nick the design, go up the road or make it theirself, you don’t even know they’re doing it and always that. And I’m really, and then half of me says oh well, everyone’s got to have a go, aren’t they, you can’t be too… you let them do it, you know. But really you want to say to them, knuckle down, break their back, make sure they go broke. You know, that is more the attitude one has really. If you got something that someone wants. I’ve always had things that people want. Most people have nothing, fucking no-one wants so it don’t ever affect their life ‘cos they don’t want nothing, ain’t got nothing they want anyway. But I’ve always had things that people want. Designs, fashion, status. Connections. Oh loads of things. There’s always loads of people who want things. They’re fed up with their background, tag on to you to get theirself forward. Which is human nature and is how it always works and I suppose they stick to you to improve theirself. But I can’t think of anyone I’ve done it to. Perhaps I’ve not needed to. Perhaps I have and not done it, I don’t know. But that’s what seems to be how it goes anyway. [laughs] Do I sound sour? I’m not really, I’m just sort of…

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[End of Track 23]

[Track 24]

I think that’s how it is, that’s life. What did he say, you never been a… as Frank Sinatra said in that song.

When you say you’ve always had things that people want, I mean were you ever approached by for example, a bigger chain or a bigger…

Yeah I had them opportunities. I had them opportunities. I mean Ralph Halpern, he used to work in Peter Robinson’s and he come you know, and things like that and he said oh well, I want to do a department for young people in there and I suppose a year later, Top Shop, he created Top Shop, become the managing director of all of them, the whole group. And asked me to do a shop in there, which I did, but he, it was the first concession, there’d never been concessions in shops before, first time. And I did it and then there was hundreds doing it and I kind of couldn’t put the energy into it and I wasn’t all that interested, but it’s a whole growth thing and you know, all department stores all over the world, they’re fifty per cent of the square footage – department stores I’m talking about, I’m not talking about like Marks and Spencer – is taken over with concessions. You know, the perfume counter is a concession to the perfume. You know, that’s how it works, ‘cos they pay rent for a certain section of the shop and whatever.

Concessions?

Concessions – you know what I’m talking about? Well if you went into Harrods, you’d find that kind of like, you might go and buy perfume and it’s that range of perfumes, that’s a concession. They might have their own perfumery department but there’d be a concession; they pay a lot of rent to be in there. Or you might go into… what’s the smart clothes shop at the corner of Sloane Square and Regent Street? Harvey Nichols. Right. Harvey Nichols department store. You know they might have, I would say Armani, they might have, you’d see the designer labels, but they’re all concessions. You know, they

Tommy Roberts Page 247 C1046/12/24 don’t buy the clothes from the designer and put it in the shop, the designer puts his stuff in there and Harvey Nichols take a percentage off the top. That’s a concession.

So, what was the thing that you did for Top Shop?

Oh I did a Mr Freedom concession when I very first started it. He was quite quick off the mark, he was quite a bright fella, this Sir Ralph Halpern or Lord Halpern or whatever he is now. And he said, you know he saw what he was doing ‘cos he said, why don’t you take a little space in Peter Robinson’s, he said I’m calling it Top Shop and all that and you know, that’s what I mean. Not a big deal in my life, I don’t want an hour and a half discussing that, you know.

But which, Peter Robinson’s, where was that?

Called Peter Robinson’s, at Oxford Circus.

And what time, just so we know, what year?

Sixty-nine I think, sixty-nine. You know, all the stores didn’t have those like Way In department, Harrods, that come in – that was the first one, I think come in about sixty- seven and there wasn’t that, you know. Department stores sold things to married, ordinary ladies like clothing, hats and things. You know, it was only later on that they got the – that’s why the youth market was so vibrant and gonna be… that they all wanted a part of it and they all wanted to get these… so they made different departments and called ‘em different names and… Way In department, Top Shop, this, that, the other, you know. Selfridges did one, I can’t remember what they called it. You know, to encourage all that. And it was all part of that sixties sort of, late sixties changing of society isn’t it? So they gotta encourage young girls to go into Selfridges and that, but in the middle of the sixties, you know what young girls would have gone into Peter Robinson’s looking for a skirt, I mean only if you worked in a bank and you needed it for your job, wouldn’t you?

So were you doing that concession at the same time as you were running Mr Freedom in Chelsea?

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Yeah, I just started Mr Freedom in Chelsea.

So, both at the same time?

Yeah, little bit after, I think I’d been going six months and whatever, you know.

You mentioned that in Carnaby Street there weren’t any designers?

Well no designers come out of Carnaby Street. I mean there’d be like Carnaby Cavern or – what was it called? Carnaby Chris and Carnaby Harry or whatever his name is, would do great big flared trousers. But they were grotesque flares and that’s when he become, you know, it was all kind of, become very common kind of thing in the end so, you know that’s the kind of designing, that’s not designing, that’s – well perhaps it is in a way, but that’s just being a bit kind of, different thing. You know, you wouldn’t - I’m talking about designing and people getting into fashion magazines and things. You know, it’s not that, you know. Vogue didn’t take up Carnaby Street particularly did they, or anything like that. But the whole world did, but the fashion mag… it was always a bit – although it’s a bit of a class thing of course, at the time. You know, I suppose it was deemed common. You know, they deemed it a little bit. Mind you, other magazines, Queen and other magazines do articles about it. But by sixty-seven it had become, it was finished on that level, Carnaby Street, it became for the, you know it became a tourist thing for a gift. You know, after sixty-seven you didn’t go there for fashion did you, I mean unless you had no idea whatsoever, you went there to buy a mug with Carnaby Street written on the side of it. A gift to show you’d been there. A facsimile of the street sign or something like that, that you know, three and sixpence postcard with Carnaby Street. A postcard or a birthday card with Carnaby Street written on it, that’s what you bought there, to show you’d actually been there from South Africa or Australia, wherever you come from, you know. You know, you might buy a t-shirt with Carnaby Street written on, but you didn’t, anyone interested in fashion wouldn’t go and buy anything there. They would have done from sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six they would have done, but not after that they wouldn’t. Sixty-seven, the end of it. Finished. Not finished, that’s when it took off of course, that’s when you made the most money there. But, for the likes of me it was finished.

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Was John Stephens a designer?

Mm?

Was John Stephens a designer?

No, he was just, no he was like, he was like all of us. We’re kind of very good at knowing what’s right and asking the factory to produce something in this manner or change it slightly. I mean I don’t think John Stephens would have been sketching ballgowns or anything would he, or you know, well you know, he wouldn’t be doing that. He’d be going to the factory saying I want real hipster trousers, drop the, make them lower or the crotch higher or the belt wider or you know, it’s, that’s what it is. It’s another name, but I can’t think. But John, he was very clever at that. I think he worked in a shop and then he opened a little shop and he then went to Carnaby Street, I don’t know, sixty-two, he’d been there a long time. I think he’d been there a few years with nothing really much happening, the reputation slightly building. So by the time sixty-four and everything, it was taking off and every youngster or young person interested in the latest clothes would want to come there, all from – wouldn’t they? But by sixty-seven it was just for tourists. Bus, you know, bus groups, bus parties, you know, coach parties.

What was he like?

A little Scotsman, little Glaswegian. Tough little gay bloke, but tough, you know. Nice fellow, alright. Bit funny. Unfortunately he expected Carnaby Street to blossom into sort of Bond Street or something, so I think he was bitterly disappointed at the end, but that’s what I think he expected, that’s what he would have liked, but of course he couldn’t stop the flow of how it was, you know. I don’t think he understood sort of hippy or anything like that, I think he was slightly older you know, I don’t think he would have understood all that. When I opened a shop, that shop in Carnaby Street with all those kind of Chinese robes in the window I would have thought he would have thought it was a bit of a show- up, not an enhancement.

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So, what was he doing whilst you were doing that?

Well he was running all these shops in Carnaby Street, he had about eight or nine of them.

And what was the sort of, the clothes that he was selling?

Mods’ clothes really, Mods’ clothes, you know. Mods is his era, really, Mods. Which is just, you know, wasn’t me really, Mods. It was kind of changing by sixty-six.

So who would his suppliers…

I mean we’re getting very fine tuning here, you know, we’re getting fine tuning here but the Mods thing was going it and then the kind of uniforms and all that second-hand clothes come along. And took the edge off it really. But the Mods wanted the uniforms and then they wanted the hippy, you know. Mods groups and that, they wanted to change. ‘Cos Mods, all them young men, and girls, were very, very fashion conscious weren’t they, that’s why they’re Mods. You know, I mean the trousers got to have a quarter of an inch dip at the rear of them, you know, it was very fine… everything was fine, you know, the hairstyles, it was all fine tuned.

I know we’re going back over a few things, but I need to clarify some. You said that when you started Kleptomania that you had furniture and objects, like the penny farthing and…

Yeah, well I was feeling my way at the time, you know. You know, I certainly didn’t – my original thought about children, that was totally out of the window ‘cos I had no interest in that at all. It was only I’d inherited from a previous business, children’s clothes. Barry St John was gonna be the original name, but I mean I knew that was wrong as I was painting the shop, I knew it was wrong. And then I kind of knew it had to be something to do with grown-up, but to make that jump to second-hand clothes was kind of a jump and I think I went to a market and I had kind of bought an old frock coat and somebody else said, I want one of them and there was a couple of people wearing these sort of second-hand bits of uniform. And then I went up to – I went into business with the bloke eventually – then I went up to the Golborne Road – not Golborne – far end of Portobello Road and a guy was

Tommy Roberts Page 251 C1046/12/24 selling these sort of old sailors’ trousers and police capes and things like that, bundles of second-hand clothes. And I thought this is good. And course, I wasn’t the only one, there was a lot of young people buying these things and then uniforms. Then I went again about a week later and I just said, oh can I buy some for our shop, do something with that. Then I started going looking myself for old clothes. So where it would have been – so that got mixed up with pine, pinewood dresser. And we used to paint this pine furniture, like Union Jacks and I dunno, flags on it and faces and things and it somehow fitted in with that. It was that time, and then it, it was Victoriana and there was a thing for Victoriana – frock coat and people wearing… then you know, they’d want a Gladstone bag, one of those little leather bags, doctor’s bags, that was a smart thing to carry around with you and that.

So…

And the clothes in sixty-five and then it was, that was when Kings Road started to take a little of a front ‘cos they were that regency look, that English boy model agency, velvet suits, long hair. It was a languid, lot of sort of upper classy kind of guys and – no, I’m saying, I didn’t see they’d all come to the stage, you don’t have to wear a regency suit, velvet suit, I mean it just, look kind of took off a little bit and there was a feeling for that and that all went, and that was kind of part of like regency-looking or something. I don’t know, it all got mixed up. It’s very complicated, it gets very deep…

The Victoriana that you mentioned, the busts and objects, things like this. I mean, the bag…

Yeah, there was shops called Trad and all them kind of things. It was all, you know, that’s when Portobello Road took off a bit. Where it had been like silver dealers and everything, shops started selling this old pine furniture and old enamel street signs and funny Victorian bits and pieces of I don’t know, clocks and everything, and it took on a certain different, it become sort of smart to have a interior with a kind of Victorian round table in the middle, mahogany table with kind of little bits of fun objects on it. I don’t know, sort of, ashtray made out of an elephant’s foot or I mean, you know, Blow Up film shows him going into a second-hand you know, an old second… you know that was a feeling at the time.

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And who would be buying these things?

Not, you know not kids ‘cos they were, even then they were like four pound, you know. I don’t know. I used to have people round – advertising agency. Well that industry was quite young. Making commercials, there wasn’t many people around doing all that kind of thing. There was one or two in advertising. Anyone like would come and say, buy that old… I used to have great big prints of General Gordon or something on the wall or battles, Rorke’s Drift or you know, nineteenth century soldiers and they’d put them in the advertising agency office, it would be quite sort of trendy. There was restaurants opening called – oh I don’t know, what are they called? Like the Crimean War or something, you know, like names like that. You know, the sort of… it was a sort of trend really, wasn’t it?

Can you name some of these advertising agencies?

No, all the you know, no I can’t name them, you know I can’t. I wasn’t that interested to name them, but you know, it wasn’t something I was interested in. Mather, I got Ogilvie Mather and people like that. But the guys who worked in those things, they had a little bit of idea and they wanted, you know they had a little bit of money, they’d got good jobs and they’d buy these big prints. I always remember these, I used to buy all these big nineteenth prints of derring-do or, you know, blokes going to the North Pole, expedition or something. Maps and things, ‘cos I used to like all these things. Always in sort of walnut frames, walnut frames and they put them in their offices.

So…

You know, there was a look. You know the modern, you know, black leather sofa, smart sofa. You’d have two of these big walnut frame prints of – I had big pictures of Queen Victoria and things like that. That would be in the office with a smart modern sofa and it was the feeling of the time.

So, where would you have bought these items?

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All over. I used to go round, trawl round. I used to do two days, go out in a van and buy all these things. I go and look, people who knew I wanted second-hand clothes, I think I explained that before to you.

But how much would you have paid for things like these prints and then how much would you have…

I mean I paid say thirty shillings and sold it for three pound, three guineas you know, something like that. You know, I didn’t sell things for a hundred and sell ‘em for five, you know, five hundred, you know, like that. Might have bought ‘em for ten shillings and sold ‘em for one pound fifteen shillings or something.

And did customers ask you to find things?

They did in the end, they did. They did. But then, but the clothes took over so much, it was getting so strong the clothes that I didn’t, that faded away, I couldn’t concentrate on that. I couldn’t spend days looking for interesting objects to sell to people ‘cos you know, we suddenly wanted to start to sort of – I had to go to a shirt factory and ask the bloke to make satin shirts with big, great big collars or something for us. So the clothes overtook it.

D’you know what’s happened to these items since, d’you know…?

Wish I did. Wind-up gramophones with big purple horn… We was terrible, we used to paint the things. Can you imagine, you’d have the original colour of the wind-up HMV big gramo… with the great big kind of swan – what you call swan neck horn – you know, wind-up gramophone in its original colour, we’d paint it bright purple. You know, or you’d paint the case of it with a kind of you know, red and green stripes or something ‘cos it’ll make it, pop it up, sixties it up. And really it was terrible really, but we used to do it and that’s what they’d want. And with all those things, we used to have lots and lots of those things. Where they all went I don’t know, I suppose they got fitted out and things come. I suppose most of ‘em are dead, the people who bought ‘em all. You know, they get divorced and new wife hates all that old tripe and throws it all out in the dustbin don’t

Tommy Roberts Page 254 C1046/12/24 they, you know. Only three things that people get rid of things is the three ‘d’s; death, divorce or debt, you know, they’re the three things and that’s what – often it’s divorce and the wife can’t stand anything with the old wife’s look, you know, it all had to be gone doesn’t it? Then a new lot come along and buy it and whatever. But anyway, it was a fad at the time for that Victoriana, it was a look and a fad and now it’s deeply unfashionable, anything Victorian funnily enough, but I have to tell you soon it won’t, ‘cos I know a couple of very famous artists - well I used to collect, I used to like anyone on the edge, as I say, anyone extreme and Victorian heroes like that, certainly General Gordon. Those kind of, well I suppose they were religious nutcases really weren’t they? Lord Kitchener, American Civil War general, Stonewall Jackson, you know, certain heroes of the nineteenth century. Not Queen Victoria really, not, you know, most not. I can’t think of a politician. Perhaps you might have kind of – not Gladstone or anyone like that. Lord Aberdeen you might like, bit of a sort of strange man. But now I noticed, it’s not, you know, wouldn’t even know, but I have noticed one or two of them very, very smart modern artists are collecting those things again. Now there’s a little tip for you.

Who’s collecting what?

I’m not saying. Somebody’s asked me to bring in General Gordon, ‘cos I’m a big General Gordon fan and they want all anything to do with General Gordon. I wish I hadn’t said it now, ‘cos they’ll all be… I wish I had kept my trap shut. Yeah. Gordon Pasha, Chinese Gordon. Strange man. Anyway.

Strange?

Well yeah, obviously gay wasn’t he, I would have thought, you know. Loner. Brave beyond the point of ridiculousness. Religious zealot. Kind of lots of things that make a person interesting. [laughs] D’you know what I mean? D’you know anything about him? Well you’d better have a little read then, hadn’t you, about that when you go to the Library. Read a little book, mm.

I’d like you to tell me.

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[laughs] Well, he’s just Gordon. Gordon. It’s just the thought of you know, something about the man, how he lived his life. Totally loner, never took his salary, always gave ninety-eight per cent of his salary away. Always lived in penury, wore very, very – although he was a General and he used to get quite a lot of money ‘cos the khedive of Egypt used to employ him, you know used to have, help him with the Sudan, which is later on where he got killed. But earlier on he went to the Chinese Government, he was Chinese Gordon ‘cos he helped them put down an insurrection in China, so you know, I think he would always get a very good salary, even you know, I’m talking about the 1860s, Chinese Gordon 1870s. But he’d give most of it away. He used to, most of it was given to boys, orphan boys’ club in Gravesend that he used to support. He used to support things like that. So he would sort of, he’d give everything away, he’d always have to be, probably live in one room with one chair and one bed and you know, one of those kind of religious kind of odd men. [laughs] Who I find quite fascinating. That they can go out there and put down a whole insurrection with nothing, they’ve got no gun, no sword or anything, they’ve only got the general’s baton and the stick, a small swagger stick, pointing at this and pointing at that. He was a Royal Engineer, Engineer, he was like army professional soldier, you know. Woolwich Barracks, Royal Engineers he come from. So he said, well we’ll build that, we’ll put fortifications there and earthworks there, you know, and go to Manchuria with no-one, the nearest Englishman was a thousand miles away you know, and do these things. Extraordinary. But then they were extraordinary, you know, that other woman, I admire that woman – I mean, what’s her name, Miss Whatsisname? She used to look after the brother and then the brother didn’t, ran away so she had to get the brother’s dinner and tea and everything ‘cos he was working – ‘cos they did, those days. You had the brother and that, you didn’t get married, a lot of people because you had to look after the brother when he comes home from work. Well, the brother worked away for three years so it was her opportunity to go and do something, be a missionary in Africa. So the woman’s in the hat, coat, umbrella, scarf, bag – same clothes she’s been walking down sort of Edmonton High Street or whatever, in 1880s, same clothing with the long coat, gets on the… then goes up the Congo, up the Amazon, in the same clothing. [inaudible] the white man’s grave, where everyone died, she goes up there in the same clothing, in the canoe, into the [inaudible], to do missionary work. I mean those people, it’s extraordinary.

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Who’s that?

I can’t… you look her up, I can’t think. Very famous explorer woman, you know. But you know, those things, they’re extraordinary.

And you admire these kind of people?

Oh I admire that, I do admire it. Admire it, mm.

Why?

Well I do because I think it’s just something, you know it’s so, to face anything like that and just go and do it. Course in those days there was no back-up or helicopters to take you out if it got rough, I mean that was it. Dressed in the same clothing as you went and got the afternoon shopping in sort of Hoxton High Street or whatever. Exactly the same clothing, same coat, same hat, right up the Congo where every other hard and grizzled Scotsman who’d gone up there had died and dropped like flies dead with the malaria and disease, you know. I think it’s amazing, them people. [laughs] I suppose there’s people here like now who do… I suppose it’s just different. I’m not obsessed with it, I mean I just find it interesting. And then she likes nineteenth century literature didn’t she, you know that… Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs Gaskell, you know, writing that book about that little small town, about nothing. Wonderful, wonderful book about absolutely nothing. You know, North and… you know, about a few people who live in the village and the women helping and then an ex-captain come to live there and a lady wants to put her hat on to meet… it’s all about nothing and it’s just a most wonderful novel. Granthorpe isn’t it called? Granthorpe? Granfield? You ever read her, Elizabeth, Mrs Gaskell? Good. You know, it’s dated, very very dated, but then I can read her, although she’s extraordinarily dated, but I can’t read Somerset Maugham because he’s too dated. It’s a bit nearer us and it’s just too dated, writing about the thirties, in a funny way. But I certainly read, I read Dickens, I read Mrs Gaskell, you know, people like that. Funny that, isn’t it?

So you…

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They’re further away, but you know…

And you think that sort of Victorian period is coming back in fashion?

No, it will do, it’ll be ten years, twenty years. They can’t have a Victorian, over-stuffed Victorian chair in the room, it’s so against what, the clean lines of today at the moment, you know. No, ten years’ time, you know. Yeah. Not for a long time. But I feel it will, it will re-emerge. Slightly different, what form I don’t know. I think people will sort of, they will have a kind of Victorian chiffonier against the wall. I can see it, but with modern, you know but I can sort of see it, but you know, it’s death [?] to try and [inaudible] those things in the next ten years. Or find ‘em or whatever, you know, but then you could go to auction and buy ‘em. But you know, I think that kind of feeling, you know, is slightly, very slightly in the air.

Does everything re-emerge?

Yeah, very different form than you think it will. Nothing re-emerges exactly the same as it did. It’s funny that, there’s always a slight different slant on it. This is all, again they’re reviving sixties fashion, but it’s not really, it’s slightly different. The fabric’s different. The mind of the… you know, you think, but look at the, you know, if people look at that original piece of clothing or design is different. It’s gonna be different. It’s gonna be slightly different. Everything come from something. It’s all, there’s no, you know, all come from re-emergence. But it’s slightly altered, slightly altered. And every time it’s slightly altered more, so then something new comes out. That’s how it works I think. You know, I think there was a kind of, twenty years ago, you know, red hot technological revolution feeling of what they called – I forgotten the name now, those things that are three-d images that dance about – what are they called? You know, through light, you know. Lasers and you kind of, lasers and all that. Jane?

[Jane] Yes?

[shouts] What are those things that, not lasers, you know lasers but they used to have all those, they would produce an image in front of you like a three-d image?

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[Jane] Holograms.

Holograms.

[Jane] Yeah.

Holograms isn’t it? You know, that’s what I’m saying. You know, what difference has that made to your life? You got a hologram big picture dancing in front of you? No, you want a bit of art on the wall. D’you know what I mean? So it often, they might take another twenty years – it will come, but you know. D’you know what I mean? Funny that, innit? So obviously it’s all wrong, what people think is gonna be next is all wrong. Bang.

[End of Track 24]

[Track 25]

So, when you came to get the uniforms, the military stuff from Lord Kitchener’s Valet, who was the person you were dealing with?

Oh, John Paul. He had the shop, I think he’d sort of started to get, you know, just like with the second-hand clothes and that’s who I dealt with. Then he moved actually to Carnaby Street, Lord Kitchener’s Valet, and built quite a big business with it. And then he was actually my partner later on with Mr Freedom.

So, did he move on from selling the military stuff?

Well he did and he was quite clever, he was a businessman really, he was quite astute. And then he did the gifts in Carnaby – you know, when the clothing… he did all the gifts and I think he earned quite a lot of money selling all these gifts to the visitors, you know. The street was thronged with coach parties. And that was the time when you know, if you were sensible, you’d sell ‘em all the kind of gifts, cards and postcards and bits and pieces.

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Like they do now. If you went to the Tower of London there’d be a gift shop there wouldn’t there? That’s what it would be. Carnaby Street gift shop.

How much did you sell the military uniforms for?

Really good ones, I think for about – beautiful uniforms, beautiful some of these uniforms, beautiful. All gold braid and beautiful tunics. I suppose a real beautiful one, like eight pound or something. And then like a policeman’s cape I think or something like that, three pound, and a fireman’s belt a pound, ten shillings, that sort of price. I think an ambassador’s outfit with the cocked hat in its tin and like a proper all gold, you know, beautiful ambassador’s uniform with the breeches and with all the coat and the hat and everything, the jabot, the lace thing for the neck, all in a lovely beautiful tin box – which Liberace bought one of course, for one of his shows, Liberace bought one of those outfits – they were expensive, they were like twenty-five guineas. They were the most expensive thing. That was a lot of money then. You know, if you’d have been working you’d have earnt fifteen pound a week wouldn’t you, or twelve pound a week.

What was Liberace like?

Or thirty guineas, maybe thirty-five, something like that, you know. Liberace, he was quite nice. Lee, we called him Lee. Lee, they called him. And he come round with his friend and came in the shop and just, oh I’ll have that, that and that and he was laughing and then he was mobbed. He was one of the people, you know, there could have been a pop star walking by and he wouldn’t get mobbed, funnily enough, but Liberace got totally mobbed by people. As I told you before, the traffic warden lady would rush over and kiss him and things. Absolutely mobbed he was, could never go anywhere without being mobbed.

Bearing in mind that there weren’t designers as such, could you go through the process of how you would…

Get something, produce something for the shop?

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Basically. Who were your suppliers?

Well one or two young, mostly young people who would make things for the shop. All young, you know, all young. And they might be art student, let’s say or ex-art student and they, oh well I’ll make a few sort of, I’ll make a few little waistcoats and they’d maybe embroider the edges of them and they’d come – the fits were always usually very terrible ‘cos they didn’t really [laughs]… but they might make like six waistcoats. And then a girl in Nottingham used to make lovely little lace, Nottingham-y lacy kind of like little mini dresses in white, I think they were like white cotton and lace. And then her boyfriend who was – he used to bring ‘em down – he was actually, the boyfriend was Paul Smith. You know, he’s a Nottingham lad and I think he was the boyfriend at the time, or friend, or helping her or something and she’d make like ten of these dresses and he’d come down and he’d bring ‘em round in a bag and I’d buy them off him and give him the money and he’d take them back to the girl in Nottingham. And somebody used to make, a friend of mine used to make the Indian kaftans, which are cut up just sort of buttons down the middle, wide sleeves, sort of kaftan with a sort of little stand up collar. And they were just machined up, he used to have a lady, a friend of his who was a machinist and she’d machine up one or two of these – he used to buy the Indian blankets from the old- fashioned store in Kensington High Street, called Pontings, they used to sell these Indian blankets. They were thin, cotton sort of throw-overs really, what you would call today. They were from India, nice sort of printed with those kind of, interesting kind of prints. And he’d make, out of one blanket he’d make two kaftans. And then he’d make six or ten kaftans – I think he sold some to the antiques market in Kensington used to do the clothes, then some to us, then he’d have three or four machinists, then he’d have ten machinists because he was probably selling two hundred of these kaftans a week. He built a big business out of it. Subsequently he didn’t, he did something else, he went and become a big time antique dealer, but at the time… It was people like that who used to come round, bring products. Also I’d go out and find things as well. And now, if I bought these, say I bought these, let’s say off John Paul I might buy a bundle of police capes and then I’d have a guy who come in and ask me to put a velvet collar on, big stand up purple or red or green velvet collar you know, on the collar of the cape. So it would have a velvet collar, it would jolly it up a little bit. And then you’d sell it for a bit more money and things like that. And then it got a big thing ‘cos where I bought the capes, John Paul I bought them

Tommy Roberts Page 261 C1046/12/25 off, he wanted a velvet collar. So in the end the guy was making like two hundred velvet collared, putting two hundred collars on two hundred capes every week. ‘Cos they were starting to sell in big quantities these things. Then you might go to the dyer and ask him to dye, buy these like, you called ‘em granny vests; they had three buttons, sort of old- fashioned vests in sort of whitey-grey fabric, underwear. And then we’d go to the dyers and take two hundred of these and say, will you dye fifty in purple, fifty in magenta, fifty in dark green, fifty in bright red. You know, red and he’d dye the – well you never got the brightness of colours ‘cos they were slightly grey, the underclothes, so you’d never get the vibrant colour, but they looked quite good, they were muted mauve, muted purple kind of winy, maroon-y colours come out and we used to sell those. So in a way, that was the way you got into producing things. And then it started me off drawing a few things and sketching a few things. I’d think, oh well I want two rows of, I want like two rows of, down the shirt, a fancy… what do they call it? What do they call it? You know… ruffles. And then I want the bright, I didn’t want the normal shirt fabric, I used to buy this bright satin. Again, purple and yellow and black and – nice colours. Shiny satin. So I went to the Old Kent Road, top of the Old Kent Road and there used to be a shirt maker there, and I said, would you make these shirts for us with these big collars. So the collars were twice the size of a normal collar. They did make them and you know, I think they were about two pound each and I’d go and pick fifty up and give him a hundred pound and come back and sell ‘em for three pound seventeen and six or something, I can’t remember the price. And then I’d maybe buy some fancy buttons, so it might be little buttons with kind of little – I don’t know, I’m trying to remember the buttons. They might have a little kind of button, they wouldn’t be plain buttons, they’d have sort of little, there might be little diamantes on them or something and you know, I’d go to the Button Queen. There was a woman called the Button Queen, used to sell thousands of buttons. She’d have a shop, she was called the Button Queen and all these lovely, beautiful Victorian and Edwardian buttons and you’d buy a box, you might buy five hundred buttons. She’d only have five hundred of this and you’d buy those buttons, you’d put them on the shirt and you’d probably get another pound on top of the shirt for having fancy buttons. And that was a way of it, it evolved, you know the design, you know you didn’t… You know, now of course you wouldn’t, you know, it’s, you couldn’t, you’d sort of learn how to do a pattern or a… you know, the arms were too tight or too long so you kind of trial and error and you found out how to kind of construct and design clothes.

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And did you have a hand in practically, in making any clothes?

Well no, I’d work out the things to be made and I’d ask if he could make it and then he’d say, I’ll make you that, and invariably the first lot were all wrong and then you do it again and you finally get it right. Even the wrong you’d sell, you just sell cheaper, but they you know, the sleeves were too long or the collar not big enough or whatever, it’s trial and error a bit. You try and work it out, but you know, I didn’t cut the pattern or anything, no.

How would you have known about the various people like the Button Queen and the tailors and so on?

Nothing really. Nothing really. I had made some children’s sort of suede hats and stuff in the past, as I mentioned to you, so I knew about machinists and things, you know. So I kind of had a couple of machinists who I knew and I’d get a roll of cloth and maybe we’d have some, they might make me kind of two dozen sort of long skirts in this kind of Chinese fabric, if I had a roll of old fabric, or six or seven or whatever it was. And they’d charge me and I’d just sell ‘em in the shop, you know. There’d only be six of it and that’d be the end of that bit of fabric. [door shutting] You’d try and find old bits of fabric. Oh, Tom could you be quiet, that’s a good boy, ‘cos we’re doing the thing. Mummy’s gone out for about half an hour. Leave the cat in the other room and I’ll see you in a minute old son. Good boy. Good boy. [door shutting]

So you knew various people like machinists?

Not various people, but you know, I’d probably know Mrs Smith and her, she had two friends and they might make some scarves or something. And it was just evolved like that. Mostly people, they were people, they might be, people might, before I come along, like doing these collars and that were people who would be alterations hands, they would be people who you know, done alterations and I said well, do twenty, you know, and that’d be quite nice, they’d quite like that because instead of doing one odd pair of trousers, alteration, they’d be doing fifty collars to put on these garments. Alterations hands and people like that we used to use. Used to have a bloke who used to be an alterations hand

Tommy Roberts Page 263 C1046/12/25 for Saville Row, suits. Or you know, in fact I think he used to be a – was it a trouser… it was alteration hand, you know, and put the buttons on the suits or change, slightly change… Alterations hands for top Saville Row tailors.

So who would that have been?

Oh, an old, funny old bloke who – used to be all these people, they used to live in little rooms round Carnaby Street. Like the room stunk to high hell this place, it was really like a… you couldn’t go in there, the stink was overwhelming, this man’s… and I think he had a club foot. He was like a bit of a sort of poor thing, sort of bent over and all that and it was, well it’s Dickensian, it was like the nineteenth century. And he’d be in this room and he’d go over to Saville Row and out the back door or whatever, they would give him two, three very expensive suits to take the waists in or whatever and that would be his work and he’d take the bundle back to his, climb up the stairs in his room in Soho somewhere in a little room, top of one of them big buildings and do his work, take it back and get his two pound, three pound for his work. And there was lots of people like that, that’s how it was, it was Dickensian really. But then I kind of found people like that and you gave them some work and they’d bring it back to you and you’d give ‘em the money.

Would they then become…

It was on that, it was on that level of thing, it wasn’t factory producing hundreds of things, you know that was later. You might have a factory if you had a big run, you know, you might say oh well, let’s make five hundred shirts then you’d find a factory maker. Then I’d find a maker of shirts and then two weeks later you had to find someone else ‘cos he’d packed it in, it was all very volatile and then he’d packed in business, you had to try and find someone else to do the shirts or whatever. Then you’d lose the fabric ‘cos he’d run off with the fabric and it was all that kind of thing. But that goes on, you know, that’s life.

Did you have any other connections with Saville Row?

Well I knew Mr Fisher, the shop round the corner and Michael Fish. He used to come round ‘cos he was doing suits for kind of the, you know, trying to do expensive hippy

Tommy Roberts Page 264 C1046/12/25 clothes, I suppose you would describe it, Michael. He was clever. He wasn’t a designer really, but again, he would take a traditional shirt and make it nicer colours. I suppose it’s really what Paul Smith done really, you take the main suit and just put a little weeny, in the tweed, a little bit of purple in the weave or the lining a nice colour and slightly altered it. That’s often all you need to do really.

Did you know Paul Smith?

Yes, well I say, he used to come in the shop and I’ve known him for years, of course.

And what was he like, at the time?

Very, at the time, very nice bloke. He come down and – I don’t think, you know he didn’t cycle down, but whether he would have worked down here as well, maybe he worked in London, but he was a Nottingham boy, and went back, he knew this girl and bring her – when he used to come back, bring her stuff down for us.

And what was her name?

Can’t think, can’t remember, that’s gone. That’s gone, that’s too long ago. We’re talking about a long time ago.

But d’you know whether she managed to stay in the business?

Got no idea. Probably got married like most of them did and they got married, had a family and that was the end of it. But as a stupid doing appliqués on t-shirts for Mr Freedom or some shop or Stand on You or whatever it was, and then probably got married and then family and the end of it, isn’t it, it’s how it is, that’s what life was, you know – and probably still is, you know. Some might have made, carried on and made a big career of it, you know. Like that woman who did the, what I call the hippy nonsense stuff, soap made out of apples and all that business – what are they called? Body Shop. You know, it was Anita Roddick is it? Yeah. Well I think she, I think we used to buy things of hers, she started going round selling little packets of three bits of soap, strawberries or

Tommy Roberts Page 265 C1046/12/25 something. I don’t know what it was, you know, special thing and it was a bit hippified so it kind of fitted. And then I think she opened a shop in Brighton and it become a great big enormous business. You wouldn’t have thought it but that was clever, and there obviously was an enormous market out there, but I, you know, I mean it was funny little bits of patchouli oil and things like, all that kind of thing, you know. Course you’d have had the incense, I’d always buy the packets of incense and always had incenses burning in the shop, so it always stunk of like sandalwood or whatever it was, ‘cos that was part of the feeling for the shop and the hippy thing, you know.

In your shop?

And I used to sell bundles, used to sell loads of bundles of incense. Mm. Packets of incense. Indian – I used to go to the, again, wholesale Indian and buy all these you know, hundred sticks of incense in a lovely beautiful packet, the packet, a lovely graphic, Indian sort of graphics on it and colours. And used to sell these, buy it in boxes, of this incense. You know, like I suppose they were sold before us, I suppose they were sold for Hindu temples for religious ceremonies or weddings in Southall or wherever it was, you know, I don’t know.

You mentioned that Vogue didn’t take much interest in Carnaby Street – why was that d’you think?

Well because there was no, much feedback for Vogue was there really? I mean, you know, you couldn’t hang an advert for… you couldn’t really hang an advert for… I’m trying to think of an upper class brand. I don’t think you know, Chanel or someone wouldn’t advertise ‘cos if you had an article about kids in Carnaby Street. They’re trying to sell bits of clothing for a lot of money. ‘Cos actually you know, it’s not just about what’s, you know, certainly then and probably… glossy magazines like that are dictated to the adverts. You know, if they show a load of kids buying clothes for two pound in Carnaby Street, you know, big time advertisers for perfumery, they’re not going to advertise are they? You know, they’d send the magazine, you know… So your magazines were younger magazines, they were different you know, they were younger people’s magazines. I’m trying to think of the names – there was lots, there was quite a few of them, like Teen or

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Seventeen or Nineteen magazine and…The Scene. There was lots of sort of young people… there was quite a few titles. And course they would all the time, every week, oh anything new? Can I put that in the magazine, can I put that in the magazine. The first sense to me of publicity, I’d never… I didn’t know it existed, but it gave me an idea. I said, oh, get something for Rave magazine or whatever it was. You know, they’d come in and say, let’s say they’re doing an article on the hippy look or the, I bought this fab, for three pound ten shillings in Kleptomania, I bought this fab red guardsman’s tunic which I wear with my white jeans and this… you know, and it kind of helped. And then abroad they’d see it and they’d cut out the picture and send their three guinea postal order, would I send ‘em one and that. First sort of clue of mail order or there was a bigger audience. That was the first time it occurred to me that there was a bigger audience. But I never got into it. Again, as I said, you know you don’t mind sending a few people who wrote a nice letter and interesting, but I didn’t want to be sending like hundreds of packets, going to the post office with a great big handcart of parcels. Wouldn’t have done it, would have got it all wrong or took the wrong thing, you know, whatever. ‘Cos that’s how he started, with the records – Virgin – what’s his name? Richard Branson, he started the mail order. You know, bits of clothes and things, I think it started mail order. But it was notorious ‘cos he always sent the wrong sizes and everything notoriously bad. [laughs] If you was a twenty- eight waist he sent you a thirty-two and you know, the record – and if the record was already scratched or something, you know. He was a shocker, he was. And he had a magazine, he tried to start a student magazine, Richard Branson. I remember him coming round to get an advert. I said well... and he got angry with me. I said have you done any, he said, no I’m just doing it. I said, well I don’t think we ought to advertise a magazine that’s not even come out, I don’t know who it’s gonna reach. I said, perhaps students are not gonna buy a… you know, perhaps they’re looking for a pair of trousers for a pound not three pound. And he took umbrage with that and don’t think he’s ever liked me since. That was in 1967 so there you are. [laughs]

When it comes to publicity, did you go out and try and find it or did it come to you?

Come to you. Never ever once paid a – come to you. But then after a while you think oh well it, perhaps we – oh then a very clever girl, most tragic thing, clever girl. She’d been working on one of the magazines and it was all like these trades were all new, like style,

Tommy Roberts Page 267 C1046/12/25 there weren’t stylists or publicity… you know, it was all new and this girl had left Teen Beat or whatever magazine. Nice girl; tall, elegant girl, about nineteen. She said, oh I’m gonna set up, I’m doing so-and-so’s publicity, like Hung on You or one of these shops, would you like me to go round with your things and show the magazines and get… I said, yeah why not? You know, cost us, you know, but I want three pound a week or something off you, or twelve pound a month to do it. And I thought oh, you know I thought well that seems good value, you know, we’ll do it. And I think she had somebody else, she probably had… you know she’d probably got two clients, she was like a modern, originator of the like Lynn Franks thing, you know and that kind of thing. And yeah, you know, so she did, she went and she got something in Nova magazine and you know, things like that and she was clever this girl. But she was only doing it about four months and she had a terrible car… driving a Mini or something and it all overturned and she got killed. A terrible tragedy. Mm. And I always feel terribly, terribly guilty. One of those terribly… ‘cos I think we owed her the three guineas or something. And I said to the guy, I said we’ll, you know, anyway whatever, I forgot or something and the father wrote to me and said, my daughter died and you couldn’t even send her a three… or didn’t mean to be like that, but it went out of your head and you know, if he’d come in the shop, I’d have given the three… And I always remember that, that was awful thing. Anyway. One of them things. But she was clever. So all them trades were really new then, they weren’t new, there were people but they were young, young with-it young woman doing it not some sort of middle aged old queen creeping about with a nice rolled umbrella and a bowler hat going into sort of Madam Rahvis and frock shop in Mayfair. You know, it was a different feeling of you know, young girl in a mini skirt doing it, kind of thing, you know. Much more lively and exciting. Change, again, it’s what I was explaining, it’s a whole change of people’s attitudes.

And when a piece would appear in a magazine about Kleptomania for example, would they write about you…

Occasionally, yeah, occasionally. Occasionally. I seemed to get identified, I’ve always got identified with it, you know. Not that I went out specifically for that, but occasionally you got identified with it. And my ex-wife used to get a write up ‘cos she used to work in the shop and things, and you kind of got slightly identified with it. Occasionally you’d get it

Tommy Roberts Page 268 C1046/12/25 and you’d cut it out and put it in a, stick it down on something for it to get lost. Yeah. So in the end you know, you kind of get identified with it.

What would they write about you?

Oh, I think being as I was a biggish fellow I suppose I was a bit unusual looking for them to be sort of fashions and things. And you know, I went in his shop and I used to do all like weird things, I might lay in the middle of the floor with all incense round me. I thought I’ll make it a bit different in here, so I’d lay on the floor, not talk to anyone. And anyone wanted any clothing, I’d go… how much… where do I pay?

So just pointing?

Yeah, just pointing. I might do that and I’d do an afternoon, all things like that in afternoons and things. And they’d say, this shop, this chap laid in the floor and he didn’t do anything and you know, and it made it kind of interesting. And course, when they read that they want to come all the more don’t they, ever so exciting. Mm. Then one day I think there was about two or three of us, you know, me and an assistant and everything and we had clothes racks – this is later on, we had the bigger shop in Carnaby… and we hid behind the clothes racks, so anyone touched a garment, a hand come out with that garment, they couldn’t see it… [laughs] Stupid things, but you could have a bit of fun then, it was sort of important but not… you know, how could you do it now, working in those kind of, you know working in Brompton Road. You couldn’t, could you?

You mentioned that you had a partner in that business, but you didn’t want to talk about…

Don’t want to mention it. I’m not mentioning it.

That’s fine. But…

Just forget all that, totally. Not one mention, his name, nothing. Nothing.

But how did Kleptomania finish?

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Oh well, right. I’d become very bored with it, it wasn’t doing anything for me any more and I was a bit, I wanted to get to Chelsea, I was a bit jealous of Chelsea. Kings Road was very happening and it was only becoming a street with just tourists, although there was loads of money, if you’d been more of a businessman, that was the time to cash in, but anyway, I just wanted to get away. And I had this partner, I said, you have the business, give me x amount and course he said, I haven’t got the money. I said, well go and ask Tom Salter of Gear Trading or – they’ll go in business with you. So I actually engineered the money that did me, which was a pittance but it was a few thousand pound and they had a meeting, I said, well you’ve got the business and I went, and that’s the end of that. And when I went I didn’t have anything to do, really, but I wanted to do clothes and then I had another fella who used to come in and sell us… help someone who used to sell us things, called Trevor Miles and I said, what are you doing? He wasn’t doing anything, but he had a – and I said, come on we’ll make, he said, let’s make some t-shirts and sell ‘em to – that, Kensington Market had just started at the time. Things like that. I said, come on, we’ll make some t-shirts. So we did some t-shirts with signs of the zodiac on, things like that and we sold them and they seemed to want them, so we sold them. In fact Mick Jagger wore one of those at that awful, 1969, that Altamont thing where the guy got knifed, that awful rock concert he did with – Hell’s Angels killed someone didn’t they, in front of the stage. Which was funny, and he was wearing this kind of Jumping Jack, you know, Dance with the Devil or whatever it was and he had one of these sort of black magic-y kind of t- shirts I used to make [laughs] on at the time. [laughs] Oh, funny – not funny, but one of them things. Anyway, that’s the story for that little range of t-shirts. And I used to sell, yeah Kensington Market…

What was that like when it started?

Well it was quite interesting, a lot of quite interesting people in there. Lot of people did things, kind of appealed to you, but it was a new environment and quite exciting. A guy, Queen, he used to work in there, you know, who died, Freddie Mercury used to work in there. And I used to…

What, as a…

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Assistant. Or his mate had the shop and we used to sell ‘em things, these t-shirts and things. He wore one. A few people like that. Anyway, that was what we used to do for a little…

[End of Track 25]

[Track 26]

So that was you and this man, Trevor Miles?

Yes. Yeah. I did it and then he used to help me and he was like a sort of partner in a small… I said you can have ten per cent of the business, we’ll do it together, you know.

And what was his background?

He’d come near me in South London, I think his father was a publican near Woolwich. Tall, thin kind of, quite clever. Lacking a bit of push, but he did things later on but you know, quite a bit of feeling about clothing and everything. So that’s what we did, the t- shirts. I’m trying to think what else we did.

Was he a designer at all?

No, like me, the same really. I think he’d helped someone do… he’d made some kaftans or I think him and the fellow who used to make the kaftans were doing business together. And they split – they did all the time, they was always splitting up and packing up, then he made some things on his own, some kaftans and we bought some off him, I think that’s how it was. And then I think he lost the money and didn’t do anything or something, whatever. But he was around, so when I left there, that’s what we did. We got some t- shirts made and sold them in Kensington Market and I think the Antique Market and a few places, that’s what we did. And then I got, I had another friend who was a printer and made t-shirts. And then we decided to do – again, it was all kind of, still the hippy thing, all the muted colours and suddenly I felt, and we both felt, I cut all, I had a crew cut, that

Tommy Roberts Page 271 C1046/12/26 was right. Cut all the hair off and everything. Make it different, sharp, different. And I think, then a bit of pop art influence. I thought I want to do a t-shirt with a sort of Andy Warhol smoking gun on it or something like that, things like that. But they had to be appliquéd and I didn’t know anyone to do that. And then I – oh we did, that’s right, we found somebody to do appliqué and we appliquéd some big stars on the front of these t- shirts. Like, just five pointed stars, cut out in satin and appliquéd on the front of a t-shirt.

So who would do that?

Well this girl, this ex-art student, Helen. Storey - not Helen Storey. Helen something, and she lived with her mum and dad in Brixton and she said, I’ll do it. And I think we gave her six of these t-shirts to do. And then I thought, I thought one of the most important parts of this little puzzle was, I thought I don’t want to do it in muted colours, I want to do it in bloody bright colours, like pop art. But I couldn’t get the t-shirts with the kind of bright colours, they were always these black or white, whatever. And then I, then there used to be this firm called Gym Phlex, it’s gone long… used to make nice sports vests, sports clothing. They used to do these like vests in nice colours for teams, for sports teams all round the country. And they were maybe like a green vest and you’d have a red, the trimming – no, white vest with just some nice binding round it, the trimmed. And I thought well, that’s a nice vest, if you could do that in green with red trimming, they’d look good, you know. So I asked would you do some and they said, well we would, then I got these vests. So they were in a bright red with green trim, power blue with red trimming. They were like, I thought well these have got kind of something extra about these. In the meantime, I thought oh, better go and find a shop. So up – I want to have a break here, I want to go to the loo and I want to smoke a fag and then, I’m getting into it, we can have a good session in a minute. Okay?

Yeah.

[break in recording]

Carry on.

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Did you tell me, whilst you had been doing Kleptomania, what had been happening in Chelsea?

Well it had been that kind of regency look, that kind of beautiful people, Chelsea… I always sort of think of that model agency and all that, I can’t think of the name now. There’d be one or two shops; Hung on You, Dandy Fashions, sell those suits, lovely sort of velvet and nice fabrics. Nice suits, nice clothes and The Beatles used to wear Dandy Fashion clothes. John Crittle’s dad, he was a friend of Lennon, John Lennon, he was a friend. He actually got them to start that shop, Apple, off Baker Street wasn’t it, on the corner there. Short-lived thing. That was in the sixties, the hippy thing. ‘Cos it was I suppose, till they learnt they didn’t need all that sort of, didn’t need the aggravation of it all, they thought it was quite clever to have like a boutique, a boutique was, you know rich people wanted to be in a bou… they wanted to invest in a boutique or you know, a kind of… they thought it was kind of smart thing to do and you’d get upper class girls who’d start a boutique in Chelsea selling clothes. ‘Cos it didn’t last very long really. Mary Quant really started the b… you know, really started that kind of, the Kings Road thing. And then of course Biba in Kensington.

When was Biba?

South Ken wasn’t it? Biba originally was yeah, off Kensington High Street, I can’t think of the bloody road now, where they were, Biba, original shop.

And when did that start?

Sixty-five I think maybe, sixty-six. Mm, Biba.

Did you go there?

Uh?

Did you go there?

Tommy Roberts Page 273 C1046/12/26

I did once, yeah, it was good. I knew Barbara and Fitz and I mean they were very nice, yeah I knew them. You know, and that really took off, when they started that, you know that’s well documented all that, but that was a big thing and all these girls were, they used to sell lovely little, like little dresses for two guineas or something you see. And they’d all queue up for when the stock came and they’d all queue up for the new things. When the new delivery of dresses came, there’d be a queue of girls waiting outside to buy them.

And what was their shop like?

I can’t remember. That’s too, in the mists of time. I think it was a sort of corner, I can’t remember now. I knew later on the Kensington Church Street shop, I knew what that was like. I can’t remember now.

The Kensington and Chelsea one, what was that like inside?

Well it was the Biba, you know, it’s well documented, there’s books on it. Her kind of, with the bentwood hat stands, a sort of art nouveau look, sort of colours and satin hanging down from the ceiling and you know, peach and light brown and creamy and chocolate brown and those colours, and fringes and you know, that kind of thing. Bentwood hat stands, slightly sort of, a kind of I suppose a pastiche in the nicest way, of like a, of art nouveau really, you know. Course still again, that looking backwards, that late Victorian thing I was just describing. That’s why people started wanting to collect art nouveau things and everything like that, it was all part of that feeling, that thing at the time.

So, you were talking about you had to find a shop…

Right. So okay, we’re selling these t-shirts, I’m a shopkeeper, I’d better go and find a shop. So I’m going along, I would like to be in Chelsea and then I’m driving along, and Michael Rainey had a shop called Hung on You, been in Chelsea Green, very thing, and he’d moved to World’s End, four thirty, Kings Road, World’s End, Hung on You. And I knew Michael ‘cos he used to buy things off me and I knew him, it’s Chelsea set, you know, Chelsea kind of shop. He used to have those kind of Lord this and that as customers and pop stars as his customers.

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Michael?

Rainey.

Yeah. Married Lady Ormsby-Gore, Lord Harlech’s sister, married. But then I think, I think he’s been in Australia for years. Anyway, to cut a long story short, and the second shop he hadn’t, the interest had gone, I think he’d been interested in it and you know, these are not people who are sort of committed retailers of fashion, they’re people who’re kind of, if they’re not doing a pop song they’ll open a boutique or something. They want to be something a bit fashionable, that’s what it was. It wasn’t a kind of, a career move for them. You know, do a bit of model or whatever they do. It was just fashionable to have a boutique wasn’t it? Then he wanted, and he wanted to pack it up or something. So he come round on his motorbike and I said, he said, do you want the shop? I said I’d be interested and he said oh well I want a thousand pound for me to go and you have the shop. I don’t think he’d been, he’d been, funny but not successful there. It’d slightly moved on, you know how quick things move on. The fashion slightly changed, he was a bit, no-one was up the World’s End, he was a bit obscure, it was a bit hippyfied. I think they had Gandalf’s Garden Coffee Shop and a couple of weird sort of hippy places up there, but there was no sort of trade or anything really. But course being me, I thought oh, well I might be in here, I like it. So I said okay, I’ll have it. So I got the shop. And he went and I put some sort of, and I put doors on the front that all swung back so you opened the whole shop to the street, in the summer. And I thought well, we can’t just have the – now we’ve got the shop you know, and my brain was changing anyway to this kind of star t-shirt and these bright colours and then there was an underground film at the time, in America, like an underground sort of political film called Mr Freedom, and it was all about a kind of cartoon character kind of mad bloke who was like a Captain Marvel or something, but actually an idiot really, anyway, it was like an underground film. And it was Trevor Miles I say, he said, God, that’d make a good name for that shop and that, and I said, yeah, yeah, no that would, we’ll do that, that’s what we’ll call it. And that’s how Mr Freedom was born. But, what we did also, the other most important again, we changed

Tommy Roberts Page 275 C1046/12/26 the look of what was going on totally at the time, it was the first real thing I done, anything with a real major change. All them muted colours out and we did all these primary colours, so we had a bright green t-shirt with a yellow star on it or it was a red t-shirt, we done these appliqué stars and we did, we printed some fabric which was like a skyline of New York. And we did, then I hung a big banner of that, again that cartoon – I made a film of it all, I can’t think of his name. He’s a detective. He’s a cartoon detective. Anyway, we did a banner. We blew up like one of those cartoon squares like in the comic strips, just took one image, made it very big, made a big appliqué banner of it and hung it over the shop. And then I got a load of, and then I painted the shop bright blue and pink. And then we had some clothes rails with kind of records, Sun record label, Elvis Presley, the Sun Records and circle of some, we cut them in half, I got a friend of mine to make these big records in plywood, sort of forty-fives, and cut them in half and two halves and a rail in between was a clothes rail. And then we have a little changing room and I got a mirror and I got, again, this friend to make a frame like the mirror and we put all bulbs round it like a, you know, dressing room of a film star. And I put in pink, in pink kind of paint I painted on it, ‘Love from Marilyn’, like Marilyn Monroe, you know. And the back, at the back was a sort of, the Empire State Building. It was as if you was, like a image, photographic image, and then they airbrushed it into like bright colours, so you were standing on top of the Empire State Building, you know it was a big picture at the back of it. Blue, bright blue carpet. Then I got this thing of having a load of televisions on. So I used to buy, I bought all these old second-hand televisions and made all a counter out of these old, you know, a sort of counter and a backdrop of all these old televisions. But course when we switched ‘em on, some had broken, don’t even work, they’re all fuzzy, but it was kind of funny image to open with, you know, all these funny old televisions on. ‘Cos in those days there were no programmes in the bloody day time, but anyway, it was just a load of crrrhh, static. So I thought that was quite clever. Then I had another guy who had a great big Harley Davidson three-wheeled bike, Tiny – he was about thirty-five stone and his name was Tiny – and he used to wear like a German helmet. [laughs] And, like a sort of Hell’s Angel. So we borrowed his bike, I said d’you want ten pound to leave your bike in there for a week or something, so we had this big Harley Davidson in the window. And then we didn’t play the usual records, we only played old rock ‘n’ roll. Radio at the time didn’t have shows where they played old records. You know, it was only new. And we used to like, used to play all these old, somebody made me tapes up of all

Tommy Roberts Page 276 C1046/12/26 the old rock ‘n’ roll records, we’d just play old rock ‘n’ roll, which was quite, no-one else did that, funny. Anyway we’d play all these old records and this shop had a kind of like mad sort of pop art, vibrant colours. The garment, these t-shirts… then we did – we only had a very few things to open with ‘cos we didn’t have the resources. I think I made some, we had some trousers made, we found some fabric with little, again had little stars, velvet with little stars in it and we had a roll of that, made some of those. Leopard skin trousers, that’s right. Found some old leopard skin fabric and we managed to make like twenty pairs of trousers of leopard skin. So all this was hanging up with these t-shirts. Then this girl appliquéd like a banana on a t-shirt and oh, that was it, and a Mickey Mouse. And I thought, I’ll go and see the Mickey Mouse people, who own the rights to Mickey Mouse, and course, them days, not like now, you know, there was just like two old gentlemen who had the rights to Walt Disney, they had a little office off Pall Mall. And I said, could we have the rights for the fabric, Mickey Mouse fabric. And no-one else wanted it. Oh yeah, alright then, you know. So I come away with that for nothing, so I mean I could put Mickey Mouse on the… and I did like Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney kind of things. Mickey swimming. God bless, oh God bless Woolworth’s was another one, these kind of image. But there was no-one else out there, this image was very fresh, new, you know. I mean a few people at art school had been playing about with it, but as a shop and… so anyway, we opened a shop, like the band, we opened a shop. I think I sent out a kind of card as a Coca-Cola bottle or something. And a few journalists come and few people I know like – who’s the one that got the teeth, you know, ‘yoof’. Television woman. Janet Street-Porter, Tim Street-Porter, knew them, they come. She was working on The Mail and she said, oh I rung up about this, you know, I don’t think she sort of really got it but she thought it was quite interesting. A few things like that, a few people come. Boom, off they went. My father come, he said you couldn’t hit a punter with a shotgun here, you know, meaning he couldn’t see one customer, where’s he gonna get any customers anyway. So we opened the door, no-one come, I thought this is it, I made a real mistake here, disaster zone. Nothing. Then a couple of people come in, oh that’s good, it’s interesting and bought something. Then about a month afterwards we got a little bit of publicity. We had a couple of people – Christ almighty, this is going back. Couple of people, fashion people bought – oh Twiggy and Justin come in. She bought something for Justin, he bought something, you know, couple of things. Bit of that. Not much. Somebody else, fashion thing, model. Couple of models come in, bought these little bits

Tommy Roberts Page 277 C1046/12/26 we used to make, little… I mean we hadn’t done hot pants then, we just – oh then we did the shorts, you know, shorts. Velvet little shorts, a couple of girls bought them. Then she was the fashion editor of The Times, was Ernestine Carter, but The Sunday Times was, was Molly Parkin. She come in, she loved it, fantastic. Give me a great big front, big page in The Sunday Times, big total page. Tommy Roberts, big page. Encouraging. Then The Times did it, then Janet Street-Porter of The Mail did it. Then it started. And then it just went mad. And then every day was film crews… I’d opened, a month nothing, then by the Christmas it had started, it started. There was always film crews outside, it was just like, just started, it was unbelievable. You know, it was a sort of, I don’t know why, it was a thing at the time, you know the publicity went mad. Then all, everyone, you know. Mick Jagger used to hang about in there and people, you know, just used to be… like wealthy, like Huntington Hartford, Paul Getty, his wife – there was all these people coming in and it was unbelievable, it just suddenly took off. It took about – let me think, I’m trying to get the timing right. Yeah, we crept along to the Christmas of sixty-nine, it kind of started in the next year. Nova did a lovely thing, Nova. I think she was the first one. Nova magazine. She did something.

Who’s she?

Best stylist in the world, best, famous, best fashion girl in the twentieth century. She’s a legend really. Nova magazine, fashion editor. Can’t think… try and look it up. You’ve only got to look it up, perhaps look up Nova. But she was great, clever. And she got like sort of people like famous, don’t know, the photographers started to come then. David Bailey and all that. They all started, wanted to take photographs. And it started then, yeah it started. At Christmas then it started. We’re selling everything we’ve got and it was going, you were really going it. Then I get phone calls from Hollywood, that Jill St John or film stars are coming on the plane, I want this, that and the other. Yeah, it was, you couldn’t believe it, you wouldn’t believe it I told you. If I’m telling you over the phone it would seem like I was exaggerating, but I’m not. It was absolutely – you name ‘em, they were there.

Tommy Roberts Page 278 C1046/12/26

When you mention people like David Bailey and people like that, I mean having experienced Swinging London when you were in Carnaby Street, did you know those people then?

No. Well I did know a few, but I knew – no, I did know people but not, no… I mean I think I always knew him to say hello and things, but I didn’t, but that, it was magic that little shop and they kind of wanted to be part of it. And course, sometimes people they might be famous, then they’re not so famous and things happen and they go through a quiet spell and they want to be associated with something that is vibrant or thing, you know. There’s that to it as well. And they want to be, they’ve got the latest model and they want to take their fashion shot in that shop. And that’s what happened really. Every top model wanted the gear, every top model wanted the stuff, you know. So there was all the photographers come you know, whatever. Then American publicity started and they called my shorts hotpants and I become Mr Hotpants and that swept the fucking world, the hotpants, every girl wanted these hotpants.

What gave you the idea for that, the hotpants?

Well, I think it was, a girl used to work with us and we just cut down, we used to do these overalls - not overalls – these bib and brace things. No we didn’t, we used to do the velvet trousers, for girls, and then she said, oh why don’t you do a real pair of shorts out of it, just cut the velvet and make shorts. And we did and we put some in the shop and they sold. And then we put the back pocket, we’d do a back pocket with a nice, say they were green velvet shorts with two back pockets, we’d put like red stars on the pockets. We’d do a little bit of activity with it, you know make them a bit… And then with stitching, top stitching like jeans, we’d do in velvet jeans, but where the top stitching would… we’d do, if it was a red pair of jeans we’d do bright green stitching in it. Well that seems nothing now, but then it was quite revolutionary and that’s what, things like that we used to do.

I’m wondering where the ideas came from – were you looking to other places or magazines or…

Tommy Roberts Page 279 C1046/12/26

No. Certainly didn’t come out of anything, no nothing ever comes out of looking at magazines, you can flick through them till Doomsday, never get anything out of that. It didn’t come from the street, it come from really, wanting to change. People wearing a long skirt, it was a bit hippyfied, the colours as I said, were muted and you just wanted, I thought wanted to go opposite. Short haircut, bright, garish pop art colours. The pop art thing was an influence and I wanted to transport that Warhol pop art or whatever, and I wanted to make that image alive for people to wear. You know, that was part of it. So kind of, it come from there really. And the sort of music we played was a reversal of what was going on. Everything was a change, it was a total change. About a year later other shops were doing it, you know, but then there was no-one. And of course, they wanted to be Mr Freedom, they wanted to go to Mr Freedom shop. If they lived in Hollywood, they’d want to get it from Mr Freedom’s shop, it meant something. The label meant something.

So it was a label?

We had a label. You know, they want something with that label in. You know, it’s no good if it’s the near beer [?], you want the right, you know. I mean if you can afford it. And New York, and there’d be phone calls, guys from New York – will you open a shop here, and I’m going to the Dorchester Hotel and I’ll be there on the seventh, can we meet in the bar and all this stuff would start, like mad stuff. I’d never experienced before, and a film crew. Every morning I’d go to open the door, or we opened the door, there’d be a film crew waiting to start taking pictures and photos, you know. Yeah.

It sounds like you almost became a celebrity.

We sort of did, you know, walk down the road and there’d be a film crew filming me as I’m walking down the road and that. No we did, it went really mad, you know. Really mad. It seems mad now, but it did, it went sort of mad.

How did it affect…

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People would say, oh come and meet Sammy Davis Junior in this restaurant and I’d have to go in the restaurant, meet him, you know, this is Sammy Davis… they all wanted to meet you, you see, ‘cos it was kind of a new thing and people like to be associated with anything new. That’s what it was. Paloma Picasso used to come in a bit, buy the jewellery and she said, oh, my father – who was ninety or something – he’d like that million dollars… I said, that t-shirt, that with all those million dollars babies, we called this t-shirt, with all dollar signs all over it. And he actually wore it in the south of France, Pablo Picasso wore the t-shirt, things like that. Then I made t-shirts, and somebody who was the assistant to Elizabeth Taylor and thing come in and they were looking round and then says oh, Elizabeth wants you to make a t-shirt with Richard Burton’s face on, or something, could you do appliqué? I said well – then they come, then they come theirself, they actually came, pulled up in a big car and up they come. I said don’t worry, I’ll make Elizabeth a t-shirt with your face on and you a t-shirt with Elizabeth’s face on. He wasn’t really interested but she thought it was fantastic. He went, oh yeah, alright then. But she was kind of, oh yeah, what d’you mean, when can we have that? Now for any of us, I want you to go to Tommy, ring him up and make sure… and all this business, you know. So we did that and they wore ‘em. Like big time million… like Huntington Hartford roll up and big limousine outside and you go out and he’d say, well get all my girlfriends one of these t-shirts and things like this, you know. They wanted to be associated with it. Mm. And course, Mick, Mick Jagger was around, he was laying about the shop, spent two or three hours in the shop sitting there. Peter Sellers used to come and take photographs, he’d be there in the morning like – Peter Sellers would be there before the shop opened, ‘cos he was obsessed with all this camera gear, he’d have all this camera gear. I suppose he used to photograph one of his new wives or young girlfriends or girls or something. And every morning he’d come, he’d be there before the bloody shop opened and he’d want to set up tripods. I said well you know, try and keep him a bit out of the way. And he’d be there for ages and ages, every bloody day for about a fortnight, he was there. Then he’d buy every… then afterwards, in the restaurant he’d buy us a dinner or something, you know, Peter Sellers. Well he was a big star wasn’t he, enormous star.

What was he like?

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Alright, you know, funny bloke, you’d be a bit careful with him, a bit touchy. But we let him do his photographs anyway and he was you know, that’s what he used to do, as I say, about an hour an half or two hours and then he’d go off and then come back again the next day with a bloody tripod and do another load of photographs. Yeah, it was funny that, wasn’t it?

[End of Track 26]

[Track 27]

You know, lots… He was always in there. Marc Bolan, always there, Marc Bolan. His first wife and that. Oh, all of them, the whole lot, you know. Just all of them. Like you know, pop stars and all different walks of life, you know, people known.

I was wondering, I mean…

But also ordinary customers, you know, we still had to sell, we still sold things to proper people. But we couldn’t produce the gear because we were selling lots of stuff. Then I rented a basement opposite and the upstairs of the building next door and I tried to kind of get things working and more stuff being made and all that.

So who did you hire to do the manufacturing side of things?

Well we had a workroom, there was a little workroom, and then we’d farm it out to get people to make things, but it was always a problem. There were small people, lots of girls who’d been to art school to make, do like thirty appliquéd t-shirts. Then we had a lady come and she used to do the knitting, all those little colours of the rainbow little knitted tops, all the striped colours and – that was an enormous thing. And she used to go off and get the knitting done. I think she’d go up north and do a hundred of these little tops and things like that. And then of course it’s difficult ‘cos they started building big businesses on the back of it and then they want to sell to everyone else, so it’s always hard to keep it, you know, suddenly they’re making a hundred things for us and then people want thousands of things, thousands of things. I remember Women’s Wear Daily which is the

Tommy Roberts Page 282 C1046/12/27 biggest trade paper in America for fashion, it’s Women’s Wear Daily, it comes out every day for the fashion trade in New York. And I used to get a copy and I picked it up one day and it said ‘Mr Freedom’s hotpants, we’re barrelling them out’. I said, what are you talking… somebody was doing my hotpants and you know, it would take me six months to go and get all the thing and the rights and the name thing, and all that kind of thing. Everyone, all over the world they were making my stuff. But, it took about a year or eighteen months to do it, mm. And course you then, you had to go through the expensive process of getting the name registered in all these countries you see, you know. I’d go to places and they’d already registered the name. Somebody else, you’d pay ‘em off to have your name.

I was wondering earlier on this morning when you were talking about people…

Registered name is different to trade marking of course.

Yeah.

Then you had to say, well get the trademark ‘cos we’d start, usually we said, well we’ll go to court then they’d pack it up and all that, but you know. Restaurants opened Mr Freedom, you know, it was crazy.

‘Cos you spoke about people sort of taking advantage of you in your business basically, is that the kind of thing you’re referring to?

Yeah, I don’t think you worried about it, but later on you know, thought God, you know, people have been earning a load of money out of those things for years and years and years. Every other year I look and see my t-shirt making the latest thing, sixties revival, fifty this or that and the other, you know. Sportswear really and all that kind of feeling, baseball, sportswear really was, it come from making it fashionable, we was the first one really in a way. We did leisurewear I suppose, didn’t you, we didn’t do kind of three-piece suits or tailored suits for ladies, did we, you know, or musquash fur coats or anything, we did sportswear. And what’s it ever been since, just sportswear isn’t it? Separates, they used to call it years ago. We weren’t that, you know, we was sort of sportswear.

Tommy Roberts Page 283 C1046/12/27

Could you talk about what the…

We’d make jackets though, we’d make a few you know, we’d make interesting things. And always have mad things. You know, I’d have the latter day, I’d have the Catholic bikers’ jackets. I’d have a black leather jacket with all chains and all saints and all symbols and religious symbols all hanging on it and you know, it cost a lot of money and that shop, somebody would buy that, you know. Few little one-off wonderful pieces, we used to make things like that. Rock ‘n’ roll jacket or, and you’d have all kind of semi- quavers and clefs and lines of music written on it and things like that. All made out of diamantes, get somebody to make that, probably cost seventy-five pound in those days. Enormous sum, a hundred pound, and somebody’d buy one of those. That was the magic, they were the things you needed to do. As you got on it got more difficult to do those things ‘cos it got into the business, you know, it got into a more involved thing. It gets more difficult to keep that kind of original feeling alive with it all. The pressure gets more. Suddenly you’ve got twenty people working for you, suddenly you’ve got… you know, and you know you’ve suddenly got, the pressure is on. Thirty people working there. So you know, you’ve got to be kind of, you’ve got to kind of keep… you can’t have the licence to sort of fool around doing bits and pieces like that, you… But those, that fooling around is often the essence of the thing. And it’ll last a certain time, you know, these things only last two or three years. Then if the press are mad for you, then the press’d go against you. But you know, if you wanted longevity with it you’ve got to suffer them bits to produce nice things and when it comes out the other end, off you go again, you know. You know, you’re only flavour for the month for a certain time. But I was flavour of the month on a mad scale, worldwide, you know.

In an earlier session you mentioned…

Not so much Japanese, ‘cos the Japanese people didn’t really start coming over till kind of a couple of years later. The Japanese invasion. About seventy-two that started really. You know, but there were always Jap… but not many, very, very few.

In an earlier session you mentioned the importance of getting the right sales staff.

Tommy Roberts Page 284 C1046/12/27

Yes.

So who were the people that you employed in Mr Freedom?

We always had, well originally we had two or three nice girls, nice people and then a friend of mine, Gerald, he was a character, but course characters obviously got - there’s a downside with characters ‘cos there’s usually trouble. But, no he come along, ‘cos he got into it really – well he ended up like Princess Anne was his customer and thing… he used to go round Buckingham – I’ve dropped him off at Buckingham Palace, he’s gone in the side door with a garment in a bundle and things like that. You know, unbelievable level.

Gerald who?

What?

Gerald who?

Well it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to get too much about all the people. In fact they all annoy me in the end anyway and they’ll all end up… but for a while Gerald was, you know. And then he wanted the job so much that he lived at Woolwich and he used to, originally he walked from Woolwich to the shop, ‘cos he wanted to be there and didn’t have any money. And then I got a bit friends with him and he started to help in the shop and look after the shop and course, in the end he wasn’t out at Woolwich, he was sleeping on the sofa in – you wouldn’t believe this – and I said, well are you going to bed? No, he said, I’m going round the corner. I said, where you going? So I sort of… He actually was going, he was sleeping on the sofa in Paul Getty’s house in Cheney Walk, he’d kind of got in with them. And then he used to sleep, be able to sleep round there. A mad level. But that’s how it, that’s what it was like a bit, it was a bit like that. Till the poor man’s wife killed herself and then that put the end to it a bit. But yeah, Paul Getty, that’s where he ended up. From walking from Woolwich, council estate, he ended up sleeping in Paul Getty’s house in the space of about three months. Wonderful really, clever really.

Tommy Roberts Page 285 C1046/12/27

[End of Track 27]

[Track 28]

Okay. Sales staff.

Yes. There was a very sort of upper class girl whose parents had a house in Belgrave Square, she come and work there, she was very nice. You know, nice people. And that’s, we gathered up. Then you know, it was kind of an exciting thing to work. Then Pam Harvey come, Pam, she was very clever Pam and she was making belts in Soho when I went there to have some belts made. And I said, you know, what shall we do, she said, oh let’s have some funny belts made like a train or something like – a choo choo train belt or something. And she was clever. And she said, oh fuck this, making these belts, I’m gonna come and work for you and do some things for you, and she just down tooled, locked the door, packed up her business and come and worked for me. Funny that, wasn’t it? People like that. They was exciting and they got you know, excited with it, the whole thing. And we started gathering a team round us of kind of exciting people. And off it went. Everything come in sold and we just couldn’t produce enough things really. The image was bigger than the actual product in a way. You know, it was publicity, image, papers, magazines asking to do, go… mad things like, do I want to do a design for the opera house or some mad things, unbelievable things. The image was bigger than the actual product.

Did you take on any jobs like that?

Well I couldn’t really. You say yeah, but you couldn’t, at the time and you know, you need to be organised for that. I didn’t even have an office. I mean it was a shopkeeper with a thing, I didn’t anywhere to even sit and organise it. I used to rent a room up the road, down the road, another room you know. It was like that, it was sort of - not organically grown – but like a mushroom, sprouted up overnight. It had been, from nothing to something, it was very quick and I couldn’t organise it. You know, then we was doing some wholesale, people used to be coming there to buy things wholesale off us, like to sell in their shop in Leeds, smart shop in Leeds, and you try and organise it but it was too much and then I used to keep, then you’d keep, people wanted it so much you

Tommy Roberts Page 286 C1046/12/28 would keep finding, people you sort of half nodded to, your mate was pinching things off you ‘cos they were so – you know, the things were five guineas and they didn’t have any money, they were so desperate for ‘em they would… Then you’d say, oh fuck me, he’s nicking and I quite liked him really, you know. That was how it was. ‘Cos it was desirable.

Does that mean that you used to have to fire people?

Yeah, you know. I mean I hadn’t done that really, but I mean, they had to go.

So how would you handle that situation? What was your way of dealing with it?

Well if they were caught red-handed thieving, you’d have to say well you’ll have to do, you know. It was always like that, that business was always like that. You know sometimes the boots with the, appliqué boots were twenty-five guineas, they was expensive. And people would say well you don’t realise, people want ‘em so much that they just can’t you know, do anything. They’d break in at night to nick ‘em or something. Put theirself on offer with the police over it all. Over a pair of shoes or something. And you know, there was a bit of that. Then Gerald was also giving friends things and occasionally you don’t mind a bit of that if he’s giving something to, I mean if it’s sort of famous rock stars’ girlfriends he might give ‘em a thing, but I didn’t want that. I said, well every time you do that it sort of cheapens it, they’d rather pay, it’s better if people pay because free it’s, you know, it’s like promotion where they give you a load of things free and you don’t want it anyway, you know. And we didn’t have the resources to do that anyway. So in the end we fell out with him, in the end.

Can you talk about the resources…

I’ll tell you how I fell out with him, you wouldn’t believe this. So Gerald – Lord – oh, what is it? Duke of, not Westminster. One of the… Duke… no, the Earl of Leicester actually, title, Earl of Leicester. His wife – quite nice, they were customers, you know all them sort of people were clients – and she wanted to do a charity fashion show. But I wasn’t, at the time, I was never in the shop so Gerald said, oh yeah, we’ll do a charity

Tommy Roberts Page 287 C1046/12/28 fashion show. And we got Ossie Clark and different people and it was very grand, I think it was something like Dorchester Hotel or something. And I didn’t even know about it and I pick up the paper one day, it says, ‘Mr Freedom doing charity fashion show’. I said, what the fuck is this… So I went along, I stood at the back, saw my clothes on the catwalk, no- one saw me then they said, oh Mr Freedom come and make his bow and Gerald come in and bowed to everyone to applause. It wasn’t even me, it was Gerald. [laughs] That’s how mad it got, you know. ‘Cos people didn’t, it was new, they’d seen a sort of big bloke in the paper with a bright red t-shirt on and something and you know, hadn’t quite formulated who it was. Then he comes in and bows. I thought well that’s too much, I can’t have that, he has to go. It’s not so much over yourself, but the image of it wasn’t right and you know, if you’re gonna create something you’ve got to do it right. So in the end – and course and then I become Mr Freedom, so everyone said Mr Freedom. My own name was sort of forgotten. Bit of a curse really, that, but still. One of the things it turns on [?].

So, in a sense you did become a designer, in a…

Yeah, well I did in a way, I did. And I used to help with certain, you know, do things. I think it kind of, if it was a real kind of push things forward sort of image thing. And then Pam come along and then she was clever, and once the image is created, then more clever… it’s like Paul Smith, he has an image and then the guy – actually the guy used to work for me- and they can sort of carry on the image and strengthen it you see. You know, Jim O’Connor come, he was from Royal College. He was clever, he did a coat with model aeroplanes on the lapels. All things like that. They were clever, Jim was very clever. They pushed the image forward, so it’d get more and more of that sort of image. That’s how it works.

So people like…

Like Coco Chanel does some nice things, but then there’s designers behind the scene who broaden out that image and, you know.

So people like Pam and Jim O’Connor, did they become staff of yours in a sense?

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Yeah, we employed them. But course they then want their own image. And of course, the other thing, when they’re all young like that, see if you’re working for Balenciaga or something and you’re a designer, you’re a designer behind the scenes aren’t you? But everyone I had wanted their own publicity, so everyone’s out there getting publicity, so in the end it gets all kind of confusing. I mean I wasn’t jealous because they were getting publicity really, but what it does, it sort of waters down the actual product, that’s the thing and that’s why – I don’t know, perhaps we didn’t pay ‘em enough or something. I don’t know, but if you worked for, if you went to work for Giorgio Armani as a designer, you don’t go on the catwalk, Giorgio Armani does, doesn’t he, or you know, because it’s not so much being that you know, you want all the glamour, it’s because if once you start it, it waters down the thing and it cheapens it and the Giorgio Armani becomes worth less in a funny way. You know, you have to give an image out. And if you feel like a fabulous designer, well you’ll have to go off and get your own finance to do your own design, you’ll have your label. But not on the back of someone else’s. D’you see what I mean?

When you spoke about Kleptomania, you described how much time you spent in the shop as opposed to hunting round…

Yeah, well I liked being in the shop, but – Kleptomania more, but then it was very new. I didn’t spend much time in the shop because I was trying to organise it, so I never, you know I could never – I’d maybe pop in for half an hour in the shop to see if everything’s alright.

At Mr Freedom you mean?

Yeah, yeah. In the beginning I was at the shop more, you know. But they’d say oh, Johnny Halliday’s been in, ‘cos I knew him, I’m friends with him. Whatever, and Johnny Halliday come in to see you and I, oh where’s he gone, where’s he gone? You know, I wasn’t there. I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was in the shop?’ They’d ring up and say, oh so-and- so’s in the shop, come up and… Say there’s, I don’t know, I was trying to think of people at the time. Let me think, you know. Whoever it was. Can’t think, film stars, guys used to come. They’d say, oh so-and-so’s in the shop, you know, very famous person and I’d

Tommy Roberts Page 289 C1046/12/28 go down there. ‘Cos he’d say, oh he’d like to meet you, but do you want to come and meet whatever, whoever it was.

You talked about not having the resources to expand or to create more than one-offs or whatever. I mean, what was the financial situation that you were in with Mr Freedom?

Well actually it wasn’t too bad, but I used to think it was awful. But actually in retrospect I should have stayed doing it myself, but I went into business with somebody else with more finance and that and actually I didn’t really need it, that’s the maddest thing isn’t it? You could have done it yourself really. Then I employed someone to be a managing director. And then we was gonna do licensing, license the name and the guy who used to license James Bond, double oh seven, another one like that – I forget his name – and he had an office, we went to see him with some licensing products and he was in St James’s or something. He used to license, he’d do licensing, I think he licensed double oh seven and things like that. And he said, and then halfway through a discussion with him, like a businessman, and he said, I want to pack this up and come in with you and work for you now. He said, I think my future’s with you. Well it’s very funny, a young man being told these things. Oh, really? Yeah, he said, I want to come, Monday I want to start with you. He said, I’m gonna deal with these things, do licensing, this, that and the other and we’ll get it licensed. And also we’d get all the famous, Rupert the Bear or something, we’d do a Rupert the Bear t-shirt and I’d get a licence for him to use to his name and we’d sell that. You know, it all sounded very plausible, it was very plausible. But all this licensing thing then was new country, people hadn’t done it before and it was all new country. It was you know, I wanted to kind of do the Baker Boys [?] in Hong Kong and you know, now if you’d had a thing like that, they would have done anything for you. But everyone was frightened, they all think, oh my God I’ve got to do this and it was so… and you know, this guy’s asked me to make five hundred bright yellow baseball boots and things and if he doesn’t pay me and I don’t sell ‘em, I’ve lost with ‘em. And, I want all the money upfront. It was difficult, everything was very difficult. So not only do you create this brand, international brand or big name publicity machine, no-one would believe in it because there was no history for it, but now of course there’d be law. They’d be diving on it. You know, because they can see that the brand’s the hardest thing in the world to create. You can do things, you can be as clever as anything, but a brand is very difficult. That’s why

Tommy Roberts Page 290 C1046/12/28 they pay five billion pound for a brand nowadays, because a brand’s you know, there’s chocolate, there’s chocolate, but a Kit Kat, you want to buy Kit Kat, it’ll cost you twenty billion pound, from Nestles. D’you know what I mean? ‘Cos it’s a brand. Hardest thing in the world to create, a brand.

So…

You know, you think of all the modern brands, you know I mean it’s like Tommy Hilfiger and things like that but, Stussy has sold millions, but still isn’t that, you know it’s hard to create them brands.

And did you do it, d’you think?

I think so. We certainly would have done if it carried on. And I feel – half of me said I didn’t want to, I remember at the end I didn’t want to carry on you see, I’d had enough of it. I’d kind of had enough of it. I don’t know, it was a thing of the time. I think that somebody very astute could have sort of built and built and built on it. But the people, you know, you couldn’t have got the support I don’t think. Well like Biba, look at how big a name that is and that exploded and that didn’t, they all went pop. Every single one, that was the nature of the business, you all went pop, nothing lasted. Nothing lasted. You know, couldn’t build it as a sort of, gonna get your wages out in five years’ time or something like that, you know. No. Nothing lasted. ‘Cos everyone wanted to expand, you get bigger and you couldn’t cope and you need, takes a long time, you need the resources of production and manufacture and selling. Then you’re in favour and you’re out of favour and everyone wants to wear your t-shirt one… and then they don’t. But if you’ve got to linger on and change it a bit and make it a bit desirable and two or three years later you come back again into favour and after about three and four of them dips you’re established for ever and ever, amen. But that takes an awful lot of resources and a lot of time. Then you’ve got internal things, if it’s all new everyone’s over-excited and someone wants this out of a business, they see it going this way or the other one doesn’t see it should develop that way and you’ve got all this slight internal conflict, there’s all them kind of things. I mean you know, it’s difficult.

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Earlier on you mentioned going to the Walt Disney, I presume, with the Mickey Mouse…

The Walt Disney licensees for the Walt Disney name in this country, two elderly gentlemen. But today, you know I mean, seems like madness, but they owned all the rights to Walt Disney in Europe.

And how much did you pay?

Nothing. Nothing. I think at the end of the thing – but you see they got greedy, ‘cos it got such a fast thing with the publicity and they must have been… and then of course all the other t-shirt manufacturers were saying to Walt Disney, oh we’ll give you ten thousand pound if we can have the rights. And they were probably thinking, the minute that bloke’s rights have finished in a year we’re taking them away from him. Although I paid ‘em a royalty and that, they’d have had such pressure they suddenly realised that Mickey Mouse t-shirts all round the world were worth thousands of pounds.

So they took the rights away from you?

Yeah, they only give them for a year. And course at the time, being inexperienced, I probably could have got three years’ agreement off them, ‘cos they was only pleased to get a penny piece out of it. But I didn’t know that did I? And I was thinking I might have moved on in a year. D’you see what I mean? So the minute a year up, they had big businesses clambering for that name. Course, they all did it and earned no money out of it, it always is, invariably is, you know it always goes fucking broke anyway, the whole bloody lot of that, but you’re not to know that at the time. So there you are… I was wondering if I could break for a minute. And then they just kind of, that’s what it did, so it was funny really. It doesn’t do anyone any favours but people get greedy, they think they’re gonna earn thousands of pounds don’t they? They probably said [noise of chair scraping on floor], the minute that Mr Freedom’s agreement up, you let me know and I’ll come round there with a cheque for fifteen thousand, and all that. D’you see what I mean? In those days fifteen thousand’d bought you two houses in Notting Hill Gate. Three houses. Fifteen thousand would have bought you three great big houses in Notting Hill Gate.

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[break in recording]

that Mr Freedom’s agreement up, you let me know and I’ll come round there with a cheque for fifteen thousand, and all that. D’you see what I mean? In those days fifteen thousand’d bought you two houses in Notting Hill Gate. Three houses. Fifteen thousand would have bought you three great big houses in Notting Hill Gate.

[break in recording]

Yes?

Along the way you’ve mentioned various famous people and probably not as many as did turn up in Mr Freedom, but could you tell us what your attitude to fame was and has been? How did you feel about mixing with famous customers?

Well it’s always a good thing isn’t it, I mean it’s, you know it kind of spins off. I suppose if you’re selling them things, it’s very good ‘cos they’ve got the money to buy it with and it’s always nice if sort of one’s contemporaries suddenly become famous and I always found it kind of, it’s got a hope for everyone in a way. And course, they change as people. It depends on the level of fame, that enormous fame of course you can’t be – I can understand that you can’t be as a normal person, how can you? I mean it changes you, it changes your outlook. You know, it’s like somebody said to me, he said well – I forget who it was, David Essex or someone said, he become very famous and he went to see his old mates. They were in the pub and they had a slightly strained atmosphere and he suddenly realised he just couldn’t go backwards any more, there was no way that he could kind of be the same. I don’t quite think that’s true, I think you can if you want to, a bit, but it does make, it does – and the way people view you and outlook and you know, you can’t be the same. And I suppose you got to be a bit careful. And obviously you find most people, everyone wants something off you. Not everyone, but you know, there’s the pressure of that. And of course that’s how I feel about it in a way, it does change your outlook. You know, depends on the level of it. Some people change their outlook and they’re not even famous. They’re famous for five minutes, two minutes. Fame, as I said

Tommy Roberts Page 293 C1046/12/28 to Ian Dury or something, Ian once, years ago, I said fame, I says when you’re in a newspaper every single day for a year, then you’re famous. Apart from that you’re not. You’re a celebrity but you’re not famous. Famous is another level. It’s all over the world and it’s in-depth, famous. Bob Dylan’s famous. You know, that’s famous. I met him, of course, lot of times. Anyway, carry on.

What, through the shop?

No, through something else really. Dave Stewart – I’m talking about later on – he was a friend of him and then he used to be here and you know, I met him two or three times round Dave Stewart’s ‘cos he was a friend of Dave and used to go for an Indian meal and all that in the evenings. It’s funny isn’t it, Bob Dylan. Now that’s famous. People see Bob Dylan, they uh, they, intake of breath. Now that’s a different level of famous. That’s famous beyond anything, famous.

What was he like?

Man of few words in a funny way, really. ‘What do you do Tom? Oh yeah, yeah’, you know. And then we, I think we went, couple of times, then he liked going to the Indian restaurant in north London, only that we was round that area ‘cos Dave Stewart had his studio in Crouch End. And Bob, he just played the guitar, he’s there, doing the guitar and it’s what he does in the evenings, plays his guitar and doesn’t take any phone calls and doesn’t go to famous things or openings, you know, he just sort of that… but he was friends with Dave Stewart. And I was friends with Dave, so I used to go round there and then about nine o’clock he said, oh, let’s go down the Indian restaurant and he used to wander down the street. Now there is a tale and it’s true actually, whenever we’d go down he’d be ages walking down there ‘cos he’d look in the estate agents’ windows and he’d be peering in these windows looking at these houses in Crouch End, you know. And I said, ‘Well did you want to get another house?’ I says, ‘You got a few’. ‘Yeah, yeah I got houses. I got houses.’ He says, ‘I might get one of them houses’. Well, what I think happened, he did go and look, I think he, hanging about and then an estate agent come out and he said, ‘I’m Bob Dylan’, course they never believe it till he says it until they look twice and uh, Bob Dylan. And he said, ‘Can I go and look at this house?’ So, they rung

Tommy Roberts Page 294 C1046/12/28 up and they said, ‘Oh, a gentleman wants to come and view the property, is it alright?’ ‘Yes course, come round’. I know a house in Crouch End. And then the bloke in the house was a Bob Dylan fan, as it happens, and the wife opened the door and the estate agent come in, he said, ‘Oh this is, I brought Bob Dylan to look at your house’. And she called up, she said, ‘Come down quick’ she said, ‘Bob Dylan’s coming to look at the house’. And the bloke says, ‘Don’t… what are you talking about, are you taking the piss?’ or something like that and he come down and he nearly had a heart attack, it was Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan looking at the lavatory, size of the lavatory and measuring up the kitchen. You know, it’s crazy isn’t it? I don’t think he bought the house in the end, but I think it was a five minute wonder, but he just suddenly – I think he was in Crouch End and he liked going there and he was there night after night in Crouch End and he might have bought a house there. Isn’t it funny? And then you have assistant and they’d have an old sort of – oh, they’d get a taxi or they’d have a sort of old second-hand car to go round in. Very low key. I mean I never knew him to go to a celebrity opening or a function or anything ever. He’s too famous to go to functions, he didn’t need to go to any functions or anything. I suppose if it’s his real mate was doing something he might attend, but I don’t think so. But I sort of, kind of got to know him really, ‘cos you know, it went on for about a week, Bob Dylan. And he was sort of, you know, it was kind of funny really. But that’s famous. [laughs] That’s famous, Bob, he’s famous. It takes years to be famous though, a long time. And fantastic clever and talented and wonderful songs and just amazing really. And I’d be in the room and Bob’d be and pick up a guitar and start strumming the guitar. Then somebody else, Dave’d get his guitar and they’d start singing and making tunes up and things. Unusual isn’t it? Some people would give their right arm for that wouldn’t they? Yeah, I know. And then I get, isn’t it funny and after about three days I got fed up with it a bit and I said, I’m gonna go home now. ‘Oh, see you Tom.’ And then I said, ‘You…’ He said, ‘I don’t know, I might be in America next week, but maybe not’. And then I’d go two days and he’d pop up again. Yeah, he liked Dave Stewart, he liked him and that’s how it was. And then one day it was, not only Bob Dylan, but Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, they were all there. And I think there was talk about making a record but they never did. I don’t think, Mick’s a bit, he didn’t want to go to the Indian restaurant, I think he’s a bit grander, but Bob said, ‘I’m going out for my dinner. Is it time we can go and have an Indian, can we have a curry?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll come with you’. I think he had a minder, he always had a minder with him, got to be a bit careful. The

Tommy Roberts Page 295 C1046/12/28 minder, Bob, me, some other bloke who was a bit of an assistant for him, and Dave, and they’d all walk through Crouch End High Street. But it was sort of uphill and one day he said – somebody did recognise him, I think in a shop or something, getting a newspaper and somebody said, he looks like, is that Bob Dylan. He said, ‘Yeah, hi man I’m Bob, nice to meet you’. The bloke’s you know, nice you know, talking and so on. And he just, you know, it was unbelievable really. And even the Indians in the Indian restaurant recognised Bob Dylan, you know. But it was very funny, just an ordinary Indian restaurant in a… anyway. There’s loads of stories like that, but then that was the thing about Bob Dylan.

When you were much younger, did you have heroes who you then went on to meet?

Oh I see. Well they’re always a bit, disappointment often, you know. You know, like musically I love the Velvet Undergound and John Cale was a hero, but when I got to meet him it was very low key and he was a bit sort of, he was friendly but he was all friendly until I asked him, I came across and said, oh, when you played that viola, you know… and once I asked him questions about the music he went a bit funny, as if I’m a fan not a friend and it spoilt it, so I never did it again, I was careful in that. And you would never ever, ever, if you wanted to stay friends with anyone famous, you never ever criticise. I made that mistake once with someone. They said, ‘What did you think of the show?’ or something, I said, ‘Well it’s fantastic’ and then he said, well – but then I put my tuppence ha’pennyworth in, I said, oh the second set of that song, great song, but I thought you know perhaps you didn’t need, maybe on your own singing, it’s… oh yeah, yeah that’s great, you were absolutely right Tom. He never spoke to me again. So you never criticise because you know, they’re very, you know it’s an unsure world and confidence, you know you’ve got to be self-confident and if anyone at all slightly sort of infringes on that self- confidence by saying something either right or wrongly, I can understand it, you don’t want to hear it really. So it’s very difficult for them to get proper advice or anything. That’s why accountants obviously pinch their money and solicitors take their… often, because it’s very hard to get proper advice, ‘cos everyone’s a yes-man round you. But you need that because you got to have the confidence to carry on and it’s such a, you know, it’s so easily spoilt, being self-confident and not having the confidence. So in one way it’s a bad thing, in another way it’s a good thing. So it’s, you know, I can understand it.

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John Cale’s wife was a fashion designer wasn’t she?

Yes. That’s how it come to be or something, ‘cos his wife, you know used to be customer. I never even knew who she was really, but it ended up he come in the shop one day and it was John Cale and she said, oh, my husband John. And he come out, but I wouldn’t have recognised him, but when I knew he was that, I was interested. I had gone in the late sixties to see him in America, as I said to you, you know. But the night I went to Kansas - but I was only there about four days – the night they was gonna play at Max’s Kansas City and all that, they didn’t play so I never got to see ‘em.

What was she like?

I can’t remember her, blonde, quite nice looking I think. You know. But they’d seen everything really hadn’t they, you imagine living through all that thing about that kind of Warhol late sixties New York and things, you know.

You know the pop art influence that you had, the concept that you took for the Mr Freedom clothes – how had you become aware of pop art?

Oh, I’d always been a sort of, you know, I went to the first Warhol show in I think sixty- two at The Tate, bought the carrier bag for three pound ten shillings which is now worth a fortune. No, I was always interested in that. Well it was new, fresh, it was the vibrancy of it and people in New York doing it, it’s glamorous and I found it you know, it was a movement that really was – but then I did see ‘em and then, but it didn’t sort of significantly you know…

[End of Track 28]

[Track 29]

…as an aficionado of pop art for ten, twenty years, I just kind of saw it and I suppose absorbed it and then got on with other things. And when I did the Mr Freedom thing, it

Tommy Roberts Page 297 C1046/12/29 was the colour and the feeling and it wasn’t sort of hippy trippy was it, it was kind of vibrant, sharp-edged, taking ordinary things and making, giving an extra significance everyday objects. It’s like in the shop, I used to have odd, somebody used to make me things to put in the window of Mr Freedom when I started. You know, I had a sort of eight foot high packet of Tide detergent, washing up, you know detergent. Big box of Tide, which is a very pop art symbol of course. But you know, looks wonderful, you know great big box of Persil rather, or Tide you know, and I had that in the window. I used to do things like that. Then I had, then we did a big card cut-out, Teddy boys, ‘cos we was into rock ‘n’ roll so we did Teddy boys in the snow as our – first Christmas I said, well we’ll have Teddy boys standing in the snow in a sort of Dickensian traditional Christmas card scene, but they’d be, standing there would be Teddy boys and Teddy girls and they were like six foot high cut-outs in this – and I had a big traditional kind of Christmas card made, like the White Hart Inn and the stagecoach and the Victorian Christmas card, sort of robin redbreast in the tree and a traditional Christmas card but it was about seven foot high. One of them very mundane, not mundane, but one of them very traditional, had a little bit of tinsel on it and thing. So I had it totally copied exactly, but seven foot high, Christmas card. And then, but the card itself, instead of standing with like Dickensian figures standing in front of the inn in the snow in the town or whatever, there were like Teddy boys and Teddy girls. Wish I’d kept it, I don’t know what happened to it.

I was going to ask, what did happen to these things?

I don’t know what happened to all them things. You don’t keep them, you do something else, next week’s a new, another week. I don’t know, you know, they were wonderful things. Lots of things like that we used to do. See, that would have kept it light, ‘cos you do that, however busy, whatever thing and the business and the demands on you, I’d always find time to do these things. Let’s do this for our Christmas or let’s make a big, let’s do something to put in that window, we’ll have a great big Harley Davidson or we’ll have something in that window. You know, to keep it alive, keep it magical, keep in interesting, music, exciting. And course, people come. People used to stand outside as if it was like the open theatre, ‘cos you stood there for an hour you’d see a pop star or something go in or out wouldn’t you? You’d see a Keith Richards or a someone go in and out.

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I mean…

Oh it was mad things, you know. Then somebody’d drive by and you’d see a great big kind of 1950s pink Cadillac drive by the shop and I’d stand there and somebody would throw me a house brick, but it was a house brick of hashish in a muslin bag. Just thrown me a big, like a house brick of thing thrown me from the street and I’d catch it and they’d wave, say, ‘Here Tom, here’s a present’ then drive off down the road. Things like that, you know, it was… Funny isn’t it? I didn’t know what to do with it all, you know, give it to people, give it away. Things like that. And then people you know, outside would be – oh I can’t think of the big films – they used to all drive a great big Harley Davidson, there’d be that parked outside. There might be one of them American Accords or one of them real rare thirties American cars. ‘Cos Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin he owned about – he couldn’t drive but he owned about three of these cars. And it’d be like a line-up of extraordinary things outside this shop. Funny isn’t it? Peter Sellers’ little Radford Mini, which was all handbuilt, ‘cos he was car mad Peter, he had about twenty cars. He’d have this little Mini and it was all kind of like coach built Radford Mini it was. Probably it was about ten thousand pound in them days. Instead of six hundred and fifty pound for a Mini, it spun itself into about a ten thousand pound Mini with all the latest gadgets. He would have loved it today, Peter, with all the gadgets today wouldn’t he? Ah, wouldn’t he just love the mobile phones and stuff and you know, he loved gadgets. He would have really loved today. Photo and television, press buttons and thing – oh, he would have just, you know. I-Pods and all that, he would have had mountains of it all. And then he’d come and he’d get a tripod and come round, go in the shop and do a two hour – I think he was photographing that girl – what was her name? Married her for about five minutes. After Britt Ekland – Amanda something or other, I can’t think of her second name. But she used to be a fan of the shop and he’d come and take photographs and in the end he loved taking photographs so much of people that he used to be there every day. It’s hard for me to think. Small Faces, T Rex, all those kind of, anyone bit of a fashionable music, anyone. Not so much The Beatles, but they always bought, all through they bought things off me but they always sent in, they’d look at night as I said to you before and they’d send someone in for the clothes. I think they did come once, I mean I think certainly Yoko Ono

Tommy Roberts Page 299 C1046/12/29 come. She didn’t buy anything. Bit miserable I think. But you know, you have to come natural with that, I can’t sort of see a thing as celebrities, you know.

Can you describe, for example, a typical day at the shop if you had been in there? How would you greet customers?

Okay, typical day. I think we used to open at eleven o’clock, there’d be a couple of people waiting. They might be coming in to see me about things. Open the doors, put the music on, we’ll all go and get a cup of tea, takeaway tea, coffee or whatever and then somebody’d roll up and they said, oh so-and-so’s coming in for a – there might be a fashion shoot, models outside for a magazine or a newspaper. Maybe Justin and Twiggy, Justin without Twiggy funnily enough, Justin maybe in his Rolls. Oh, then I’d have to go round the busman’s café which was like a sort of shack where busmen used to have their cup of tea like a sort of roadside shack round the corner, which is now made into a restaurant, but in those days was like a sort of, one of those sort of tea sheds where you stand outside and have a cup of tea, you know. But we’d have to go and have tea, so he’d come. My first job, Justin arrives in his Roller, off we go round the corner to go into the, to have tea. Now that would go on, then I’d walk round the corner, walk back and then there’d be, as I say, there’d be the fashion shoot getting underway and lamps outside and cables and stuff and then people would be coming in the shop and there’d be someone being served and there’d be – I’m kind of sort of… they’d say, oh so-and-so’s in the… Brigitte Bardot’s sister Anoushka or someone’s in trying on a dress and thing and it’d be like that all day really, till about seven o’clock. People coming and that and maybe Mick Jagger’ll be standing outside ‘cos Bianca would be in there trying on something and people – ‘cos anyone’d be talking to Mick and it was like that. It was, that’s what it was like, it was the film set all day long really, it was unreal. To anyone else it would sort of seem fanciful, it would seem like exaggeration, but it was a film set, it was a kind of every kid’s dream in a funny way. And if you know, then people bring, and then we wanted these kind of fifties American radio shows and we couldn’t get them and somebody would come in and say oh, I’ve got some nice old, I’ve got some recordings on vinyl of XK5 Louisiana in records and so we’d have really interesting records that people would bring. Couldn’t have it on all the time ‘cos there wasn’t, didn’t have hi-fi, it was a record player playing. And you’d have interesting records, people would bring us things and everything.

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They wanted to be, just wanted to be associated with us really. Then on a Saturday I’d go to Adel Artusi’s [ph], I might go to that posh restaurant in the Kings Road, that smart restaurant and there’d be, as I said, like Sammy Davis Junior – ‘cos everyone wanted to be in London then as well. It was the place to be, they wanted to be in London, you know. People would always – Amanda Lear and people like that, you know.

You said people wanted to be associated with the shop, did you ever charge…

Well it was glamorous, it was just glamour and I suppose they thought a bit would rub off wouldn’t it?

But did you ever charge people in any way?

No, no. Never been into that kind of thing. No, never get into that grotesque level like that ever, in my life, you know. People would, but not me, I never felt that. I never even – you might say, we should charge everyone ten bob for coming in here, we’d make a fortune. You might say things like that, you know, but no, I mean that’s not what it’s about is it?

You’ve talked about your attitude to your famous customers, but what was the atmosphere mixing with these people?

Well, their eyes would pop out their head sometimes, they’d go in there, they come in there. ‘Cos they’d read about it and they’d make this journey, you had to respect them. They would come from Manchester for the day or they’d come from even Glasgow for the day to come and buy something there. It would be a big thing for people to come all the way to this little shop in the other end, in the wrong end of Chelsea. And they’d make a special effort to come and purchase something. And course, they’d come in there, there’d be invariably someone in there and they’d be, you know, we wouldn’t have anyone starting asking for autographs or something. People did occasionally, they’d say oh would you sing my carrier bag or something like that. Depends, if they were like that, but you didn’t want… It was too… people who come, anyway the people who would come would have a bit of idea anyway. If they had no idea they wouldn’t be going would they, they’d be

Tommy Roberts Page 301 C1046/12/29 going somewhere else, they wouldn’t be going there. So people who come, they wouldn’t be on that level, they wouldn’t be rubberneckers looking to get Mick Jagger’s bloody photo, you know we wouldn’t have that kind of thing. Number one, people’d be kind of a bit too sort of heavy duty for that really and also you know, you didn’t encourage that kind of thing. And you know, once it was on that level of course it’s all over isn’t it? No-one would ever come then. It only lasts, this kind of magic period only lasts for a certain time with anything. After a while it becomes kind of, there is people hanging about to look for a pop star or something, you know. Then you have a doorman or whatever. But then I wasn’t there that long, I was only there, you see you got to remember I was only there about, that shop, I was only about eighteen months or less perhaps. ‘Cos it was getting big and move on, move on. And then I went in business with John Paul who’d had I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, he wanted to get involved with me. I said, okay, let’s open a big… so we decided to open a big shop in Kensington High Street - erm Church Street, Kensington. A big Mr Freedom. So that was a golden period, what I’ve described to you really, the golden age.

Did you run both shops at the same time?

For a little while, but only very little while. The Trevor, who was working, he kind of didn’t fit in with the other one. I said, well Trevor you have the shop. You can’t go on, you’ll have to change the name. So when we, after a little while, after like two months or something, three months of being in Kensington, we closed the Kings Road shop, World’s End shop, then Trevor took it over ‘cos he was, he stayed, so he went and he opened a shop called Paradise Garage, which was very good. It was all those scrubbed jeans and second-hand American clothing, again what become a great big thing in the seventies, but he was too fickle, mucking about and didn’t, at that shop. But then, bit of a scene with the rent so he said, well he said, ‘cos somehow I still had the, I was sort of like responsible for the bloody place. So anyway, he said well I’ll rent the back of the shop. I said, well it’s a good idea. So he rented that to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, he rented the back of his shop you see and they started a little business there called Sex and stuff and all that. So they started off in that shop. And after a while, then he went abroad and he went broke with that business and it all finished, so McLaren, I said to McLaren – Westwood had been a customer in there, she’d been going in and out. Didn’t buy nothing, I don’t

Tommy Roberts Page 302 C1046/12/29 think she had the money, but she had a little baby in a pram and I always noticed her ‘cos she was interesting and I always talked to her and everything, you know, kind of interesting. And so they took over the whole shop. Fine. But the landlord who I – a bloke who kind of was allowed, something happened, he chucked ‘em out this shop, see, in the street and I took Miss Westwood to the solicitors and I said, no, you can’t do that. She was reinstated in the shop and – course she’s still got a business there to this day, World’s End, there’s still a business of hers in that same premises to this very day. But of course that’s how I knew them ‘cos they started off there, that’s where they started off there.

What was somebody like Vivienne Westwood, what was she like when you first met her?

Kind of little bit – I always thought she was probably a little bit difficult, but clever and I knew that she was kind of quite clever. And she started up doing… you know, it was quite clever what they did. They did Teddy, they just did Teddy boys’ clothing originally, that was what they did. All these Teddy boys used to come down in coach parties to buy these – she was the shop doing Teddy boys clothing. But she was being a bit clever and things and changed it and made it into Sedition or Sex or – I can’t remember, Too Fast to Live, Too Young – all these different names, and made an interesting shop and we know, it all went on and on didn’t it?

Did she have a design background?

I don’t think she did, no. I don’t think she did, I think she was married years ago to an airline pilot or something. Something like that originally, from Manchester, originally. Originally.

So…

But Malcolm, now Malcolm had been asked, yeah Malcolm he knew Vivienne and I think they just got together to make these Teddy boys’ clothes and then they sort of become a couple. And he was a bit younger than her, Malcolm, I suppose he’s a man of about sixty- one or something and she’s a woman of about sixty-six now, you know, today I would imagine. Sixty-seven maybe she is, but yeah, I think she was a little bit older than me, a

Tommy Roberts Page 303 C1046/12/29 year older than me or something and he was maybe two. She’s sixty-five, she’s probably, yeah sixty-five, you know, and he’s probably sixty.

Have you maintained contact with them?

Not much, no. I mean I used to see the son a bit ‘cos he was in a pram and I’ve known him ever since he was a baby. He’s got a shop, underwear thing. You know, what’s it called? You know, famous, big business he’s got – makes all the underwear, all that kind of sexy underwear and that. French name. Come on, you must know that. Son’s got a big business, a big business it is. Agent Provocateur. Yeah, that’s the son. Malcolm, yeah I haven’t seen him lately but I always stay in contact with Malcolm. I was mates with him for years. I remember the beginning of all that stuff and that. Anyway, so anyway, we’re now in, we opened a big department store, big shop like and Biba’s opposite, they opened a big shop, store and then I’d see Barbara and that every day nearly, you know, Biba. They was up the road, we was down the road. And then we opened this fabulous shop and we really was fantastic. And a guy from the Royal College helped me with the interior, done the interior thing, was Jon Wealleans. ‘Cos Jane, I know them ‘cos his wife used to do some fabric designs for us. Both Royal College, originally. And Jon and me sort of did this kind of – we didn’t have any shop front, only had doors and you go in a little passage, wonderful passage where I had kind of paintings of Teddy boys and things on the wall, a doorman, then you go into this big room and I had all wonderful colours, all the clothes in there. Then another bit of counter and then a men’s section; it was like a department store.

What’s the sort of size of it?

Big. Again, there was no shop front, doors, you go in the doors, you walk up a sort of corridor, wide corridor – like going into a theatre really – and then you open into a big room and then that was all I think women’s clothes there, or all the t-shirts and stuff like that I think. And then to the left you went up two steps and then on the right was another big room with men’s clothes. On the left was a great big long counter with all the accessories; the belts, the jewellery, the bits and pieces and things like that. Then right at the back we had a children’s department, we did a kids’ thing like Rupert the Bear clothes

Tommy Roberts Page 304 C1046/12/29 and all that kind of thing, like at the time – we did a shoe department, there were shoes as well.

When you say big rooms, can you compare it to something else?

Big rooms. Well, forty foot by forty foot. You know, big space.

So you had it decorated?

Yeah.

And how did he do that?

Well we had people decorate – you know, with colours, we had these kind of… it had been a thirties restaurant actually. Famous thirties restaurant, can’t think of the name of now. So it had like this panelled walls as you walked in and then you opened the double swing doors and then they had the original thirties kind of up – all around the ceiling, all around the edges of the ceiling was all these, was like alcoving – not alcoving – but like how they’d just throw light up above and they were all steps so we had them all in nice ice- cream colours like light, very light pink and cream and peppermint and all these colours and they’d throw light and that’s the colours we used in it, funnily enough. And in the middle we had a big statue of the, we’d have a big statue of Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour made which was all in sort of chrome, and we had that made by someone. And then we’d have a great big – the shoe department was a great big shoe and you displayed all the shoes on the shoe. It was a great big high-heeled stack shoe and that was that. All nice things like that.

Anything else?

Well the clothes racks were clothes racks, they were hangers, like big chrome – imagine the hanger where you hang your clothes on – well great big seven foot long one, big chrome hanger and all the clothes used to hang on the hangers. They were rather nice. Nice quality. Spent a lot of money doing it. Expensive operation.

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When you say a lot of money, what…

I suppose it would cost fifty thousand pounds in those days, you know when you could buy a house for five thousand, you know.

So…

Well not a – yeah, I suppose you could buy one, you could have gone up Ladbroke Grove and bought yourself a house for sort of fifteen thousand, you know. And it cost fifty thousand.

So, did that money come from the Mr Freedom, the first…

No, because a guy invested that money in it, you know the partner of mine. I don’t want to get too much of the economics of it all really.

I just mean in terms of a comparison to what other people might have been doing.

Yeah. Well, Biba did the same, you know, they had that and they went in with British Land, a big company that owned a load of property and they bought that department store in, Barkers of Kensington and done it there. The big Biba store with the roof gardens and all that, you know. So they did it. There was a few like on that level, but not many, no. And then, and the production had to be more and more and thing, and yeah, so that was kind of then, we had – opening of that was extraordinary. They closed off Kensington Church, the whole street over it all. So many people – again, film stars couldn’t get in, you know, one of them mad things. Sort of my mate [inaudible] said he couldn’t get in the door, they wouldn’t let him in. All that mad, you know, kind of crazy stuff. Peter Sellerses and things and stuff. But it ended up so many people with cameras and stuff and so much publicity that the whole Kensington Church Street was sealed off. [laughs] Mad innit?

Did you make that publicity?

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Well, because it was self-generating wasn’t it? You know, we said we were opening a store and sent invitations to the press and certain people and you know, all the big glossy magazines and that and certain amount of good customers and friends and it sort of generated. Instead of like five hundred people were invited, five thousand people turned up. Then we did all this kind of – then we were gonna open a restaurant in the basement called ‘Mr Feed’em’, that was a wonderful thing. But we hadn’t opened it – had we opened it then? We hadn’t opened it then, we opened, but we had all these kind of, we had all this mad sort of dye so we did like cakes in bright blue and [laughs] all kind of mad things. Then that was the catering and it was all – oh it was just mad. One of those sort of openings. I’ve always had, often if I do anything like that it usually ends up like that. Anyway, that was that and it opened and off we went. They all coming in, but again we was, hard getting supplies. Beautiful shoes and things we made, wonderful boots. And upstairs above it, we had the offices upstairs so we’d have like the receptionist and the office and above that we’d have the design studio, you know, Pam and Jim O’Connor and you know, we’d, working out all the you know, doing the ranges, the designing, it was a big business.

And were you hands-on with the design side of it?

Yes, I used to work up there a bit. But I couldn’t, you know, I was always being pulled away by something. It was difficult for me. And my partner, he was alright, we fell out in the end as we always do in these businesses, I mean one always does, but you know, there was always someone saying come and have a cup of coffee. Instead of saying no, I’m working I’d say, alright I’ll see you down the road and there was always something going like that so my whole day was meeting people and then there’d be someone wants to take photograph and a this and a that. You’re kind of full up with – really, I should have gone and worked in sort of Lewisham or somewhere, get out of it, that’s what I should have done. We did in the end ‘cos we had a workroom in Lewisham so I used to work down there in the end.

How did the success of Mr Freedom and everything that…

Tommy Roberts Page 307 C1046/12/29

Yes, then I went through a stage I didn’t want to do any work anyway. What, go to my head you mean?

I didn’t mean that, I meant how did…

Slightly. Mm. Well you do don’t you, you know, I must admit it did, you know. Didn’t want to do any work for a while. You kind of get wrapped up in it. You’re getting invitations to go to Hollywood and things like that coming through the thing all the time, you know, what do you do? You sort of, mad life really and it really, and it only lasts a short time. But really I always kind of knew that you know, I didn’t want to do what I did, but I sort of got you know, it’s like Biba, she probably didn’t want to do it but you get swept along with it all. If you’d have gone more carefully and that, and that’s what one should do, but you think at the time and it’s all exploded in these great big things – Biba, us, thing – it all went to the wall. You know, ‘cos you want to open, be in America opening shops, do this and you want to do clothes, you want to do menswear, shoes, jewellery, hats, scarves, sportswear, this, socks, knitwear, you know. And you know, there’s no way unless you rolled along for a few – building it very slowly, then you can do that. But you want it there and then, you want a great big department store, enormous thing - there, instant. And it can’t be done, but that’s what you wanted.

So, when you say it went to your head a little, did you make mistakes?

Yeah, but you kind of – also the control isn’t quite there. ‘Cos where before it’s small, you know you’re making fifty things – I don’t make them in brown, I know that. But you turn round and somebody’s made like a hundred and fifty sort of little kind of baseball suits, like girls’ baseball suits in bloody brown and cream. You don’t want it. You know, ‘cos they had brown and cream on the floor and that’s what they’ve used and you know, it takes a long time to build the key people up, it takes a long time. And there wasn’t time for that, you know you just did it. And the person I did it with was great, but he wasn’t experienced on that. And I should have let it organically grow a little bit more, but you didn’t want to organically grow, you wanted it now. Whether or right or wrongly, there you are. I don’t know. Then there was always court cases ‘cos everyone was nicking the name and everything all the time, and there’s always problems with trademark aggro and

Tommy Roberts Page 308 C1046/12/29 this, somebody’s doing with Mr Freedom in Cincinnati, somebody’s doing Mr Freedom in Hong… you know, it was like a permanent thing. Well that can all be done, but it takes…

[End of Track 29]

[Track 30]

…organisation, time and whatever to organise it. I mean, you know. But I keep saying, the same for Barbara. Biba’s the same thing. Only the same.

You’ve mentioned New York variously in the recording, did you actually do any business?

Opened a shop there, yeah opened a shop there, yeah.

Oh! When was that?

With an American guy, but then you don’t, you’re inexperienced. Oh, I don’t know, 1971 or seventy or something, and it was a five minute wonder, the guy opens a great big shop. Two minutes later is fed up with it, probably a wealthy American and you go there three months later, it’s all closed down ‘cos he’s fed up with it. You know, that was boutique, clothing was his thing that time, next week he wants, he’s more interested in taking cocaine or something – I don’t know. You know, it’s like that. So you kind of invest time going over there setting it all up, but you can’t, you know you’ve got to have an American partner to do it and you find out they’re not experienced really. They’re only the likes of us or, same out there, they want to do it and they do it and they spend their money and then they get fed up in two minutes. Then you find out it’s all kind of crazy and then you ring up the [inaudible] and they said, ‘Where’s Harry?’ you know. He said, ‘When you see him let me know ‘cos I’d like to know where he is as well’, you know. [laughs]

Was that called Mr Freedom as well?

Tommy Roberts Page 309 C1046/12/30

Yeah. Then I had another big scene over there with – she was alright really – oh, Itsy Bitsy – what are they called, I don’t know. She become a big fashions, New York big fashion name in the end, this woman. That was alright, they had a quite nice – and I used to sell them clothes over there in New York. But in the end she ripped all the designs off. I thought I was selling them all these things and they ripped the whole lot and got – and she sort of started her own business out there with all my bits and you couldn’t really do much about it really unless you wanted to go and – what can you do, you know. It’s all that. But I’m not getting – but that’s how life is, I’m like saying it and all, bit embittered with it, it just doesn’t matter, that’s how it is, that’s how it was. I mean you know, they rip you off ‘cos they like it. Most people don’t even, no-one wanted to even rip off what they’re doing anyway, do they, they haven’t got anything, you know. So that’s it, but that’s fashion business. Not quite the same now ‘cos they do sue and all that, but that’s fashion business. I do something, you do something, what I’m gonna do? Go through a three year court case over it? You’ve got to re-register the name of the company and don’t say anything, it don’t matter does it? Nothing you can do about it.

How did all this affect your home life?

If you was, if you was doing clothes which is sort of like doing women’s separates or something it wouldn’t be so much, being it was such a strong identity, it could be ripped off easy, you know. I’m gonna do a bright coloured t-shirt with a slogan on, the same slogan and you know. When I put ‘God Bless Woolworths’ and sell loads of them, and who’s to say that I should be saying it on Woolworths? I went to Woolworths by the way ‘cos I wanted Woolworths to do it. I wanted Woolworths to have a whole counter in every Woolworths doing all the pop things. I mean I wanted them to do, you know all their suppliers, which they got kind of quite a good strength with, the guy who makes costume jewellery, get him to do some sort of pop art fun costume jewellery. The guy that does, the people who do socks, let’s do some bright socks. Use our suppliers to do one line specially for Woolworths that goes on a pop counter in Woolworths. You have a bit more, you don’t have the Woolworths girl by the counter, you have somebody – at the time I thought they ought to have a 1930s Woolworths uniform on, who worked behind that one counter. And so you’d have all these kind of very reasonable priced bits; you’d have a nice pair of like earrings made out – I bet they done it all now, but those days they hadn’t –

Tommy Roberts Page 310 C1046/12/30 say like liquorish allsorts or something, you could buy for seven and sixpence in there. You know, ‘cos you would have used their big suppliers to make those things and you’d have got every supplier to make two lines for this pop and it would have been a fantastic success for Woolworths, fantastic. The time was right, people, it was a bit kitsch and people were into kitsch, it would have been absolutely right and I wanted to do, all the big Woolworthses to do a pop Woolworths. So I went to the manager and he couldn’t really and then he said, oh we are doing something, then pressed the button and a bloke come in with a load of architectural drawings to make Woolworths go upmarket which even I knew was a terrible thing to do, but he was gonna try and make a posh Woolworths. Well that would never, never work, as we know Marks and Spen… it could never do that. But what they could have done was a, put a pop counter in ‘cos it would have fitted the look and people would have understood that. No, they wouldn’t see that. So in the end that all went fuzzy and Woolworths all got bought out by someone else anyway so they all lost their job, so they should have listened to me anyway. But that’s what I wanted to do and I really tried hard for that. I used to drive up to head office and try and chat ‘em into doing that, ‘cos I knew that would have been a big success. ‘Cos they had the people to make the plimsolls or the sandals and you know, say they’d got plimsolls in there for nine and sixpence, horrible sort of grey ones – that person who made them would have been delighted to make bright yellow ones and pale blue ones and pink ones and they’d have been nine and six. Then you’d have sold millions of them. No, they didn’t see it. That I’ve always come across, they didn’t see it. It was a shame, that was one of the things I’m annoyed about ‘cos I could have really made that a big, big thing, you know.

But weren’t you doing something like that with Peter Robinson’s?

Yeah, no that was a concession. Just putting our clothes into Peter Robinson’s. But that was a bit problematic. ‘Cos in Peter Robinson’s, the stores, if you, say you bought that top and you didn’t like it the next day you could go in and get your money back, say, you know I want to change it. So what they were doing, they were buying things in the shop, they were on the fiddle, taking them there, getting their money back at Peter Robinson’s, it was like a clever you know, clever scam and I’ve had two or three people who – and everyone who, you know, two or three people I quite liked. They were in this scam in the shop and they were doing it through Peter Robinson’s. It was sad really, I had to get rid of

Tommy Roberts Page 311 C1046/12/30 them all. But the other thing with the big Mr Freedom was a scene with the stealing ‘cos as I say, they all wanted, the nice t-shirt was six guineas, they didn’t have the six guineas so we’d have a Black Maria every Saturday, take ‘em all away. All the people who’d been stealing in the shop. You know, it gets you down in the end. The guy you really like, he was assistant, Harold the Teddy boy, I really liked Harold, he was a Teddy boy, he was a bit of an oddment but I like that kind of thing in the shop ‘cos he’s – I’m not worried about him selling anything, but he made it look interesting, he was peculiar really [laughs] I suppose, but then Harold has to go and nick something, you know. And I said, ‘Harold, you haven’t nicked anything?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s a fair cop guv’ or something. I think he lived in the 1950s in his head and he’s gotta go in the Black Maria, you know. In the end it wears you down. It seems to, I don’t know how other people, but there’s a bundle of them kind of businesses like that. They want the things and everyone’s at it. It’s so depressing in a way. Then another couple, they were like boyfriend and girlfriend, I didn’t mind them, but as the mail order things were coming in he went in the stockroom and they were doing the fiddles… all that, you know. I suppose every business goes through that, that’s part of being in it, but perhaps I wasn’t suited to run big businesses.

Did you have to employ security?

Well we’d have a doorman, we’d have a uniformed doorman. But I liked that, that was part of the glamour, ‘cos you know, it’s theatre isn’t it, what I’m doing. It’s not just shopkeeping, it’s theatre. I mean you hear it bandied about, retailing’s theatre, you hear it all bandied about all the time, but then no-one ever said it but I always said it. You’ve got to give them – they’re coming in there not just for the clothing, for the bit of glamour and the thing that it is a famous shop and they’ve come a long way. They’re buying something and it’s a day out and it’s important for them so you try to make it an event.

What was his uniform?

Don’t know. I think an ordinary commissionaire’s uniform which they wore in the thirties and they still wore you know, the same thing. I didn’t have a bright pink commissionaire’s uniform or anything. And I had someone, I had to employ a person going round looking for theft and all that business, you know. Like you do, but that’s what you, that’s part of

Tommy Roberts Page 312 C1046/12/30 the store, that’s what you do but it didn’t really suit me, you know. And I didn’t really have anyone I could put that over to to do for me really.

What would you have worn in the shop?

Mm?

What did you wear in the shop?

Don’t know. I used to have kind of suits, I remember suits and Tommy Nutter used to make me nice sort of wonderful suits.

What suits did he make for you? What was the…

Well I knew him ‘cos he was a Saville Row tailor. I mean I might have a bottle green suit with purple trimming or I might have a brightly checked suit. Real bright, big, windowpane red checks on it and double breasted suit, things like that. Used to do quite nice canvas sort of trousers, they were quite nice. My feet didn’t fit our shoes unfortunately, it was uncomfortable for me, but you know, the lovely kind of Desperate Dan boots, green and white Desperate Dan boots and things, they weren’t really, I couldn’t really fit those, no.

And what was Tommy Nutter like?

Tommy? A very nice guy – died years ago didn’t he? But Tommy, yeah very pleasant sort of gay sort of fellow, but didn’t come like that, but just very nice and he used to have great clients, you know. We’d have the same clients. Elton John when he first got famous come to me and I made him a special outfit with a, I think a grand piano appliquéd on the back of a boiler suit and he went and, you know, he was quite, well getting on alright, I wouldn’t say he’d made his career, but he got photographed for the Rolling Stone magazine with this outfit on and it made him into a bigger star. So I feel that we did do quite a lot to put it all on another level. He used to be a customer, you know, Elton and then he’d have suits made at Tommy, you know, Justin had suits made by Tommy and

Tommy Roberts Page 313 C1046/12/30 he’d make like sort of celebrity suits I suppose, that’s what he did. Clever fellow he was. Yeah. There we are. So we’re into Mr Freedom, that’s the 1970s, seventy-one. That was again the same with all the colour and all the thing and all what I’ve just described. Carry on.

Could I ask, fill in a bit of home life details?

Not really.

But your son was born, 1970.

Yeah I think so, yeah. That’s right. That’s it then innit, you know, jolly good.

Anything to say?

Not much, no. I’m not one for home life, families and all that. They’re very nice, gotta love ‘em all but… [laughs] We still lived at Greenwich, that’s right. Then my son come along but I’ve, being fair, I was more entwined what I’m doing in London, in Chelsea and all that. But as it so happens we still stayed together funnily enough, but I don’t know how, you know, didn’t see each other for months on end. But there you are.

You mentioned the liquorish allsort jewellery idea that you had for Woolworths – and didn’t you have…

I didn’t really have the… you know I’m just saying, we did have liquorish allsorts, as I just said to you, it’s only come into my head because we did do all them kind of things ourself, later on, we did do all those things, you know. But that’s why I wanted to, you know, we’d do it and do a few but Woolworths could have done it really good and they’d have had their own counter and we could have done their, you know, it could have been their own, an image for them and it would have fitted in what they were doing and you know, it would have been a marvellous success for them. That’s what I think. And it was all there ‘cos they had a strong arm with all their suppliers supplying them and they could have said to that person, well do three different earrings like this – a, I don’t know, hamburger

Tommy Roberts Page 314 C1046/12/30 earrings and you know, at the time and whatever and they could have done that and they would have just sold millions of them. ‘Cos it would have been cheap, they would have been five shillings or something. You know, I mean, bangles, bracelets, sort of cheap watches, hairclips, scarves, ties, socks. Loads of things, you know they could have done. Then I like wanted to get into their crockery, you could have done a lovely set of plates couldn’t you, with like pop art imagery on, like dinner, box set of like dinner… you know what I mean, you could have done so many things. And I think it would have been runaway success.

But what did you actually put into practice of that in the Mr Freedom?

Well we did as we could, you know, it’s hard to find somebody to make those you know… People used to make things like belts and come in and they’d make some things for us and oh, a guy used to make appliqué handbags, they were very expensive. Again, they were about twenty-eight pound at the time, but he would do like a packet of cigarettes, like a packet of Camel, American cigarettes, Camel, Lucky Strike but the shape of a packet of cigarettes, width, but that big on you know, like a shoulder bag. And they were beautifully crafted, the leather it was all finely done and the lettering – it was just like a packet of cigarettes blown up to that big, in leather, all done in beautiful leather, nice strap, that was a shoulder bag. Beautiful objects. You know, lovely things they were. Things like that. Real clever things, wonderful things. Then we’d do, then somebody else would do special jumpers, hand knitted. Wonderful ones with kind of like – I’m just trying to give you – they might have you know, gets corny what you’re saying because they’ve been copied and copied and gone into you know… But we might have like aeroplanes going across or we might have blue with white puffy clouds and birds and that all going over you. And then it was kind of new and no-one ever done it, but now it’s been done. But course, people copied that and carried on. And then I’d – I dunno. I remember asking like David Hockney and Peter Blake and people, would say would you design… and they never got round to it, they would do a design for ‘em and things. I could have got all that, I could have got all them artists to do something, they would have been delighted to do something.

But that didn’t happen?

Tommy Roberts Page 315 C1046/12/30

That didn’t happen, I just didn’t get… it didn’t happen. But I got them all to – all the top artists, I could have got all of them to do it.

How did you know them?

Well, because they know the… they used to come in there, they wanted to be part of it like anyone else, you know. I mean Alan Jones, his wife, Deirdre, you know. Peter Blake I’d known for many years. I’d known him for a long time. David Hockney used to come round. And lots of others, I can’t think, put my head, you know, they’d come round and have a look. Andy Warhol come to the little shop in there, he’d come, visit ‘cos of all those ultra… all them mad people, they did a show I think in London and come and they all come over, one of them films that he did, opened the film and things. That was great, I come down to see him of course. He was special.

What was he like?

Very soberly dressed. Wig on. Standing there looking, yeah, yeah. He said, ‘That’s my image. That’s my image’ or something. I said, ‘Yeah’. ‘I don’t mind.’ [laughs]

Did you, when you said you went to the Walt Disney thing about Mickey Mouse and so on, did you have to do that with artists, did you use artists’ work in that way?

Not really. No, they don’t want art, they wanted cartoons and stuff didn’t they? You know, later on I did things like a Frank Stella carpet and things like that, but at the time it wouldn’t have figured and people wouldn’t have picked up on that really.

So when Warhol said, ‘That’s my image’, what was he referring to?

I don’t know, I think I did his gun, his gun you know, his pistol pointing at you on an appliqué. I think we gave him one, but he didn’t want that, I think he wanted something else, I can’t remember. A sort of funny thing, I can’t remember what it was he wanted. Ice-cream cornet or something. And course the one Mick, the one Mick Jagger bought, the lips and the big tongue, course he’s used as his logo forever after hasn’t he?

Tommy Roberts Page 316 C1046/12/30

Did that start with…

He’s never given me any money for it. [laughs]

So did you start that design?

Yeah. I suppose the tongue was a bit longer than it would have been, but it was an appliqué and he wore it. That’s what that image, you know it’s part of that thing that we did. [laughs]

These things that you had made, the sort of giant shoe or something and the objects that you had in the shop…

I had a giant Dansette fifties record player made. That was about six foot high and all the records went on it were great big, that big. And all the records had all the artists all done exactly right and there was a stack of records on top of the – and all the knobs, big knobs like that ‘cos it was giant. And things like that we had made, you know.

And when you say you had them made, who did you go to?

Oh, a guy used to make, Wright, Tony Wright. He was quite known for sort of sixties furniture and that and he used to organise the making of these things. You know, I think he did a, I think he had one in the shop, he had two, I had one for me – a sofa that was made out of like big cigarettes and things like that, you know. Like big filter tip cigarettes, sitting. Then a big chair made out of false teeth, false teeth chair which is a big open mouth with all teeth and it was a big chair you could sit in, you know, big tongue. You sat on the tongue, it was a cushion. Then we made, again, you know there wasn’t like you know, music like you know, those things or anything, there wasn’t that, low technology time before anything like that. It was before sort of sound systems. I’m trying to think how we played them, I think we did have a – by then you could get a couple of speakers rigged up to play the music, yeah. But you know, all that stuff came later. There wasn’t sort of, you know it’s only like put a record on, you know, that was all there was, wasn’t

Tommy Roberts Page 317 C1046/12/30 there? Or a reel to reel tape or something. But I did another, he did that, like a space pod and there was all crash helmets in bright like a Union Jack crash helmet, a stars and stripes crash helmet and another one, I don’t know, like a Russian one with the hammer and sickle crash… The crash helmets, you come in, you can put the crash helmet on and you could hear the music through the crash helmet in a sort of space pod thing. Yeah. That was something we, that was – I don’t know what happened to it all.

Really, you don’t know…

I don’t know what happened to it all. No. I don’t know what happened to it all. No. Shame, innit?

So…

And when we did the restaurant kind of bar, we had some great big knives and forks made and things like that, you know. [laughs] And then we had… then I kind of, I bought a big load, packs of these, they were beautifully made, beautiful crafted little flies. I think they must have been from a jewellers or something, they must have made sort of something, a brooch, little flies they were, perfect. So I had enough, so every time we do a bowl of soup we’d put a fly in it. So, waiter, there’s a fly in my soup. All these kind of like things like that, when I think the energy that went into these things. Yeah. Amazing really.

But you don’t know what happened to any of them?

No. Well they go, it all gets packed up, it all goes to storage. Who wants to pay for fucking storage, I don’t, you know. D’you know what I mean? Boom. That’s the life of it all isn’t it, that’s why something from the Biba shop or something is a bit valuable ‘cos you know, they just pop up ‘cos people have bought them. Barbara Hulanicki hasn’t got a great big load of Biba clothing or anything has she? I mean I haven’t got… you know, you just move on. We’re not collectors, that’s part of something, we just did it. It’s for the other people to collect it out there, not me.

I was wondering if you’d seen anything turn up in retro…

Tommy Roberts Page 318 C1046/12/30

I have occasionally, yeah I do, yeah. The last nice, I think a real good bit was in, I think in Christie’s up to about five hundred, four hundred and fifty pound was a satin – we did a lovely zip-up satin blue and yellow like zip-up jackets. I think it’d have an ice-cream cone on the back, but if you reversed it, it had another appliquéd image, maybe if it was an ice- cream cone one side it’d be a hamburger the other side or something, so you could turn it. Different colours and different… And John Galliano bought that. ‘Cos he collects a bit of Mr Freedom things.

And how did Mr Freedom wind down in the end?

Don’t know, wind down things like that, they just implode. They blow up. They just finish. It all gets too much and it’s everything that… you think oh, can’t stand it any longer and the bank or something, you owe them or whatever. You know, it liquidates, it blows up. That’s how it happens with things. Specially those days, you know. And you know the writing… oh well, that’s it, go at the next thing. And I mean you know, when that imploded then I thought I’ll start the next thing so then I went to Covent Garden when it was a fruit market and upstairs and started City Lights Studio. That was a different era, that was the David Bowie era, the glamour, that was a different era of people. Roxy Music. New, slightly new wave by then had come along. And I did a few, couple of bits for – she was clever, I’ll tell you why she was clever, Westwood was clever, Mrs Westwood was clever. I think after that I wasn’t doing anything and I know she was doing all that Sex thing so I did a t-shirt with – I mean [laughs] shocking really – not that I’m into it at all, I’m not, but from the Velvet Underground – Taste the whip in love not given lightly see, thing. And Malcolm said, ‘Oh they’re great, we could have them in the shop’ so I said, ‘Oh I’ll print a few up’. And when she got ‘em she said, ‘No’. So what she did with them, she cut the sleeve off and cut in half and put a bit and two safety pins and the image was all over it, and so that was her thing, that was her extra bit. So I thought well, that’s clever. Just a little funny thing.

Before we finish today, is there anything else that you think needs to be said about Mr Freedom as a period in your life?

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No. It’s just something you done and people still remember it. It’s a long, long time ago, but it started off that wave of things that people have seen, you see it go on and on and before me and that there wasn’t those things, there wasn’t that sports, you know that kind of look of clothing. You know, we used to scrub jeans, get denim and scrub it out in the yard with detergent to take the colour out of it and all things that become mass, mass things afterwards didn’t they? Mass things they become. And I think it was very, you know, lot of people it was an important thing. It was short-lived but important and people… And I suppose it gradually gets lost in the mists of time. Like Fiorucci, he become, you know he was a big thing in Italy. But Mr Fiorucci used to sell shoes in Milan and come in and I was talking to you before, I had a few of those, when I first - mind you he was clever, ‘cos when I first opened in Kings Road I had a few of those leopard skin trousers I made out of old material and he bought them and he put ‘em in his shop and then he bought something else like a thing and then, and then a year later it isn’t Mr Freedom selling shoes, it’s Mr Fiorucci doing a big Mr Freedom type thing in Italy. You know what I mean? All them things. Kansai Yamomoto, first Japanese designer, he come in. And Japan didn’t register on the firmament then at all. He come in. Clever, nice bloke. So then he did those things with like appliqués of like kind of Japanese warriors on and things and you know, the beautiful clothing with sort of images of… you know, the Kansai, the armour and all, you know the Japanese thing. Anyway, and he’d make like, his jumper, he’d make like great big sleeves and all this kind of fantastic kind of – what do they call that Japanese theatre – Buki whatever, I can’t really… Big Japanese mask on the back, all kind of in the knitwear and things, you know, really wonderful. But really, you know, he’s come in the shop and put his own interpretation which is his. And then after him, then the Japanese and then she come in, a little woman who’s fantastically talented, Japanese designer in France. You know, big name, does in wonderful, with fabric and all that. What’s her name? Japanese. Big designer, enormous thing. I can’t think of her name, but I can remember a little, petite woman. And there was – that was in City Lights Studio she was coming ‘cos that’s where I first got into Japanese. But she went off and made an enormous business. But they come, first I got into Japanese. And they were shocked ‘cos I think they thought they were coming to see sort of pop art and rock ‘n’ roll and bright colours, but when I went to City Lights Studios I did it all kind of, I only played like John Cage music and I only used old gold, silver and black as the colours in there and it was all very different, totally. And I kind of had a big table made, the table was made out of skulls

Tommy Roberts Page 320 C1046/12/30 that I got from the medical shop, like for students to learn anatomy. So I got skulls and bones and we made a big glass-top table and it was all kind of eery, frightening. And I went really extreme then. And it was on top of the building, it took five flights to get there, so I mean only the brave would actually go up there. So when these Japanese come – and I think they would then see that and they liked that they did, they liked that. But that was the first sort of influence of Japan, you know. I know two or three of ‘em become big, big, big business stars.

[End of Track 30]

[Track 31]

…’cos they know, you know, about Mr Freedom too, they know all about that.

But that place with the skulls, that’s City Lights isn’t it?

Yes, in Covent – that’s another story. That’s interesting. I think that’s a – I really liked that, wonderful things we did there, wonderful things. That’s a little bit later on. So that was Mr Freedom – bom, bom, bom. But next time we’ll probably put a little bit more on that and do City Lights and we’ll try and do City Lights and Practical Styling, talk about that, you know. Anyway, we’re up to about 1972 now aren’t we? Is that right?

Yeah. [laughing]

Are we finished?

[End of Track 31]

[Track 32]

Okay, so it’s twenty-first September 2005, interview with Tommy Roberts and I said the word gorilla.

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We made a big, electric blue, fun fur, eight-foot gorilla - one of the very talented people who was around me in Mr Freedom in 1969 - to put as a window display. I’m not a big football fan but Chelsea won the cup that year – or was it 1970? It might have been 1970, sixty-nine or seventy, you’d have to look up your records. Anyway, whatever it was, I said take this big gorilla, because it was blue, Chelsea colours, and they took it and they put it on the bus as they went round, all round Chelsea and Fulham for their sort of victory sort of parade and that’s what happened to the gorilla. After that I don’t know what happened to it. I suppose one of the fans run off and took it home. Gorilla story, kaput.

Whose idea was it in the first place?

I think it was my idea to have this great big kind of electric blue gorilla as a sort of, to put in the window – we always used to make these things. If it wasn’t a, eight foot packet of Persil or Daz, it would be a gorilla or a enormous Christmas card as I explained earlier or – always something funky and unusual, you know. Funky – that’s a funny word, but unusual and striking and I suppose pop in a way. A pop statement. Object.

You mentioned last time that John Galliano was collecting some Mr Freedom stuff. D’you know anyone who…

Yes, there’s a few people, you know there’s a few people. Justin de Villeneuve’s ex-wife Jan, I think she collects it. Daisy de Villeneuve. There is a few people out there who collect the things. I know some man who collects the things, so I suppose if they ever want to exhibit a few things we could gather up quite a few items.

And, d’you know John Galliano?

I met him. I went to his first show at St Martin’s once. I was taken along by Suzanna Barsch who went out in the eighties and made a big name for herself running discos I think in the late seventies, eighties in New York. Suzanna Barsch, she was famous in New York in the eighties. But I think I went along with her. Actually she’s Swiss but she lived in London and she went off, married, with the artist who did all the rainbow things and

Tommy Roberts Page 322 C1046/12/32 everything and they lived in the Chelsea Hotel. But that’s something else. But I just remember going to that show at St Martin’s and thinking it was, you know, just to me he was fabulously talented designer. Which he is. You know, he hasn’t got to sort of trawl through thousands of old history books to come up with something, he can get his – and course they all do look back on things to get the ideas, but he can take his scissors and a toile and drape a dummy and cut it and you know, he understands, he’s got the feel for cloth and drapes and you know, he’s a natural designer of women’s clothing, which I always respect ‘cos there’s actually very – you know, there’s lots of designers but you know, it’s that extra talent.

When you were doing Mr Freedom, did you have friendships with other fashion designers?

I can’t, I’m trying to remember. Ossie, Ossie was a friend of course. He was down the road wasn’t he, in Chelsea there, in Quorum. Ossie. Trying to think of the main names at the time. There wasn’t that many kind of, like that kind of designers really, they were usually old Mayfair, frocks sort of designers really. You know I met kind of Cecil Beaton but he wasn’t you know, designer but – and of course who I quite liked who I met the end of – he didn’t reign very much longer, he died – who used to design the Queen’s clothing. The Queen’s wedding, coronation dress he designed. Er… It’ll come to me in a minute, I can’t think.

Ossie Clark – what was he like?

Again, one of them extra talented people. Beautiful designer, clever. Bit erratic. Bit difficult, but you admired him, he was a designer and interesting person.

Was it Norman Hartnell that you…

Norman Hartnell, yes, Norman Hartnell, that’s right. Yeah. I met him two or three times. Witty, funny, clever. But I just remember him from you know, those fashion designers. Yves St Laurent I met. I met most of them, you know. ‘Cos even then a lot of them were dead, the old ones.

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How would you have met somebody like Norman Hartnell?

I think I went to a function, a dinner, something, an award ceremony at, I don’t know, Dorchester or something and he was at the next table and in fact he came over and we all come and sat at the table and his friend with him and kind of really, I mean it was just a sort of, he was funny and interesting and – beautiful suit on, I always remember, he had a nice, beautiful suit. Not – old suit, but that’s the thing, it wasn’t all crisp, it was all a bit rumpled but beautifully cut and made. And I found him an interesting man. You know, like those people, they’re always interesting, a lot of those men, they can do the clothes, they can draw very nicely, they can do this, you know they’ve got that sort of style and talent and I dunno. I always find ‘em sort of very interesting, although they can be a bit cutting and a bit waspish, they’re always you know, they’ve just kind of got something extra about them.

Can you give an example of what waspish is?

Well I suppose they could turn on you couldn’t they, you know. I can’t think of a sort of witticism come straight to mind, but you know what I mean.

How d’you think you were regarded by other designers?

I think as a curiosity really. Weird. I didn’t look like a designer did I? And I think they were kind of surprised really that you sort of sprung on the scene. I can’t say ‘cos I’m not them.

How did they react to this market that you had found, the youth market?

Well yeah, they was interested in that because it was changing the face of you know, it was kind of changing the face of how fashion and everything was kind of looked at really and how magazines treated it and how it was sold and marketed and it sort of changed it. So I suppose from that point of view they’d be very interested in it. And I think they were just pleased that it was a London thing popped up and give the, reinvigorate the London kind of fashion scene. I mean I don’t think there was, I don’t know if there was any animosity, I

Tommy Roberts Page 324 C1046/12/32 suppose there was bit, but you know, who knows? But we were that different, we were kind of, we weren’t sitting in an atelier, you know cutting patterns and making toiles were we? We were like Biba and Mr Freedom, Biba, there was you know, a different kind of thing wasn’t it? And it appealed to what young people wanted and you know, it sort of, they could kind of – it was accessible.

When you say it reinvigorated the magazines, the media for…

Well it did, ‘cos all they’d had and then they’d had this look, or the hippy look and it was all a bit dowdy actually at the time. And it came along as a fresh impetus and it kind of – it was colourful, it was sexy, you know it was wonderful to photograph wasn’t it? You know, beautiful girl in a sexy piece of clothing all in primary colours, bright. You know, it was a dream for ‘em, for magazines and everything.

Which photographers did you come to know?

Well I mean I was never like the best friend of – Terry Donovan’s really the only friend of that, but course Bailey I knew and photographers at the time. Duffy. There’s an American photographer – David… And Lord Snowdon, Snowdon used to come to the shop and he used to come from the Palace, Kensington Palace and no-one knew him ‘cos he’d have a big crash helmet on and he come on his motorbike. And I let him put the motorbike in the hall so he could kind of come in, in a crash helmet when no-one knew him and so he’d take some photographs and hang around and kind of, he liked being round on that scene. You know, Lichfield – but they all took the photos, I can’t think. You know, I mean I wasn’t you know, aware at the time, I wasn’t studying photographers, I don’t know, they might not have been famous then but they are later or they was famous then, nonentity, lost in the mist of times now. I wasn’t interested, you know, it wasn’t hello, the friend, I was friendly with ‘em. They’d say oh, this man’s a, he takes photos, photographer, very nice and you know, that’s how it was. It wasn’t, I wasn’t kind of ticking off every famous photographer ‘cos he’s – I didn’t know who they were anyway, half of them. You know, every main, proper model – Jean Shrimpton, every model wore the clothes, all those fame… Veruschkas and you know, all of them. You know, they were just beautiful girls

Tommy Roberts Page 325 C1046/12/32 who looked good in the clothes. You know, I didn’t know if they were, it didn’t sort of matter to me if they were famous or not does it?

So how was that organised, you know, models wearing Mr Freedom clothes – who would be setting that up?

Well I don’t know, they’d ring up and say can we do a piece for The Mirror, or can we do a piece for the Nova magazine, or can we do a you know, get some things. But we did have to get organised, I mean that was, there was a bit ad hoc, you came along, take a couple of things off the rails, photograph them, take the photograph, bring them back. But we did in the end, we had a very good girl secretary who helped me and she did organise the clothes and she’d ring them and say we’ve got some new things in, would you like to come and photograph? So we did, it was the beginnings I suppose what now would be a press office, which I suppose in those days you didn’t really have a press office, but that’s what it would be now. And then we didn’t really have – I’m just trying to think, we had… We did, I explained to you earlier, the girl unfortunately died, she started to do that. So we were a little bit aware of that. And as I say, the secretary, she organised all that for us and she’d have a rail of things, the latest things come and they would pick things and take them away and bring them back like it goes on today, and photograph them. Often they’d like to photo – the other thing, ‘cos it was such an interesting shop and so colourful and everything that of course they – and we’d always have these unusual items in the shop; displays and things and new things, that they would often like to come and photograph in situ, you know, in the shop or outside the door or whatever. And obviously they would have maybe have like a, some famous actress or something and she wanted to be photographed, they’d want to photograph her for the paper and she would come and we’d let her wear the clothes outside the shop and she’d have a photograph taken of her, you know, whatever it was. Usually, used to get quite a lot of press when Peter Sellers was always marrying someone. Every year seemed to be marrying another one, so we always got a nice lot of press then ‘cos it was a yearly event.

So when a fashion shoot happened in your shop, would you have been there, would you have had any…

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No. Not really. They organise it, this girl, secretary, she would organise it and everything. I didn’t know they’d been photographed in the shop until I looked, I’d see it in a magazine. I thought oh, that’s a good shop, you know, that’s a nice thing but I didn’t even know who was in there. Occasionally if somebody was very, very famous, they might say oh, whoever it is, someone, so-and-so’s in the shop and you might say oh, if it’s good, come down and have a look. Film star or whatever it was.

And who would you have made an effort to go and see?

I don’t know, I think if it was… Duchess of Devonshire or something [laughing] I would come down. Quite liked that kind of thing. I don’t think I’d be trolling down for, I mean, Jordan, although she wasn’t even… then, but you know. Palumbo Picasso and that, you know. Anyone interesting like that. Palomo Picasso.

Why the Duchess of Devonshire, why would you have found that impressive?

Well I’m kind of quite interested really in that. It wasn’t the Duchess of Devonshire, probably the daughter or sister or something. Now I might get this wrong, don’t take this verbatim, but somebody come in who was an attractive woman, I’d say oh there’s an attractive, you know, you say oh there’s a very elegant woman in the shop. That’s Lady Stirling. And she come over, she said, ‘Oh are you Tommy, Mr Freedom?’. I said, ‘Yes’. She said, ‘I’m Lady Stirling’ she said, ‘Not the SAS hero Stirling, but the one with the castle Stirling’. [laughs] What all that meant I don’t know. But I thought it was funny and she laughed. Those kind of things, that was the magic of it. You know, that’s what things I liked.

You mentioned Terence Donovan, no longer with us, but what was he like, how did you get to meet him?

I can’t remember now. I can’t remember. No, I’m not gonna say a lot about it. Forget that.

Bear in mind other designers and so on, the names that you mentioned, the team that…

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I don’t want to get too much into lists of names of celebrities or something. I’m not interested and I’ve forgot it all, so it’s no good, too much of all that. I don’t want it really. I don’t know fucking Tom, Dick and Harry. I don’t know, you know. I’ve gone through it all, Jimi Hendrix – what more can I give you, you know. Loads and loads and loads, as I’ve said before, specificially, but if you ask other people who were connected with me they will remember their batch of names and people, you know.

But the team of designers that you employed – you mentioned Pamela McCarthy…

Yeah, Pamela Motown, Jim O’Connor. They went off to America. They become a couple in there, they got together, Pam and Jim and I think we called ‘em Jam. ‘Cos Jim and Pam, so they were Jam. And Jam went off to America and I don’t know what happened there and I think he had a shop in La Cienega Boulevard or worked for some, helped someone, you know and made their life in Hollywood or you know, Los Angeles.

D’you know whether they went on to do…

I don’t know really, I did see him, he did come back and was all friendly and, occasionally but no, I don’t really know. Disappeared in the mists of time, whatever, like me.

And how had you met them in the first place, had they approached you as Royal College – were they Royal College?

Well I told you, Pam was making belts and I went up there and she just downed tools and come with me. Jim was from the Royal College and he was doing bits for another, a very short-lived shop I can’t even remember the name of, in Mayfair, making things and I think I saw an overcoat with kind of like rocket ships on the lapels and it really took my – I think it was in Vogue, a picture – that took my fancy. And I never thought, I thought Jim, oh he’s good and I never thought more of it and then he came along one day and asked if, would I like him to do some designing and I said yes. So I think the first thing he designed was a hat with a sort of you know, like a 1950s, one of those 1950s B movie kind of the Martians have landed hat, which is a little skull cap with a sort of television aerial poking

Tommy Roberts Page 328 C1046/12/32 out of the top of it. And I thought that was a fantastic item so I said yes, of course you can come and work with me.

Another one was Jon Wealleans.

Oh Jon was the Royal College. His wife used to do, his first wife used to do fabric design and Jon and that, and when we were moving Jon was an architectural student at the Royal College and we got on fine and he helped design the interior of the shop, the big Mr Freedom. And I think from then on he got other jobs, made a little of a name for him. But he it only through his own talent because he was very clever and it was a beautiful job that he did.

Oh, so he was doing the interior design of the shop?

Yeah, I think he did it. Well, he was a Royal College of Art student, that’s what he was. You know, sort of, and it was a job that he took on because he was studying architecture and studying art.

Did you personally have any links with the Royal College of Art or any other art colleges?

No, not particularly. I think I went to a couple of the shows, end of year shows. Later on I did, of course I mean I had lots of photographs and I let the College photograph them all for their archives and I did two or three lectures there, but that was later on. And Penny Sparke and people were there and that. ‘Cos I always friendly with – he taught there for many years – Peter Blake was a friend of mine, ‘cos he was from the Royal College and a couple of the lecturers there I knew. Fleur Cowles, few people.

Peter Blake, we’ve recently interviewed him – could we have any, how did you get to know him? You said you knew him for many years.

Many years, I can’t remember how many years I’ve known him. He comes, Dartford in Kent and you know I kind of go to jazz clubs, but he’s a bit older than me. And he was always friendly with my friend Justin de Villeneuve, you know, Twiggy’s ex-boyfriend.

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And he was friends with him and just known him for many years, I suppose you do though, don’t you, people. Friends.

But not through work, through the jazz clubs and so on, was it?

Yeah, not through anything to do, I don’t think he, I mean I’m sure he would have done if you’d asked, but he used to buy clothes occasionally. He’d find it interesting. David Hockney used to buy clothes. As I said to you, all them sort of art, you know the pop artists they liked it ‘cos it was, I suppose it was making a three-dimensional live thing, you know, it was a bit of art wasn’t it really? You know, it wasn’t just built on commercial thing, it was, and the commercial side of it was ignored over it all, over the look and the theatrical side of art, it was a sort of art piece in a funny way, the whole bloody thing. The whole shop and the whole thing, you know. It was sort of beyond normality wasn’t it? You know, it wasn’t accountants sitting down and working out the profit and loss of it all, that’s why it exploded. That’s the same with Biba, they just did it ‘cos they wanted to do a great big department store, Biba. That’s why we all went pop, ‘cos it wasn’t, it was on emotion and what you wanted to do. It wasn’t just to do with economics and common sense. Alright. D’you want to go on to another business or anything like that?

I’ve been asked to ask you about a Victoria and Albert exhibition, I think 1971, and you mentioned Cecil Beaton.

Yeah, Beaton, yeah. They wanted a few things included in the exhibition and I’d already given two or three things to the V and A and so they had a few things on permanent loan and I gave him two or three other things to put in this exhibition, which I met Cecil through that exhibition. Charming man and very nice and I wouldn’t think he’d want you too friendly, but charming to meet and everything. Whether he went round the house drinking glasses of wine, I don’t know, but you know, I think he kind of compartmentalised everything. You know, certain things. Well they’ve got to I suppose. It’s like Snowdon, like Tony Snowdon isn’t it? You know jolly, jolly, jolly and then one step too far. It’s like someone said when they met Margaret and they get too friendly with Princess Margaret and they said, oh, now does the Queen do so-and-so and something?

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And she would say, ‘Do you know my sister?’ and put a stop to it. That’s how it has to be, in life. [laughs]

What are the things that you had donated to the V and A and for that exhibition?

I don’t know, I can’t remember. Look it up, they’re in there. I can’t remember. A t-shirt and a jumper and a this and a that. A few nice things I think. But I, you know, I haven’t got written down a list of it or anything. I don’t fucking know. How do I know? [laughs]

Where other contemporary designers included in that exhibition or were you chosen, singled out for that one, can you remember?

I don’t know. I’m sure Ossie and that and other contemporary people would have been in that exhibition. I can’t remember now. I honestly can’t remem… oh, he was very nice – Bill, Bill… another designer. He came from actually, the Isle of, he came from the Shetland Isles. Bill – what was his name? I think he was in that exhibition. He was very good, he was clever. Boyfriend – well, ‘scuse me – friend, Kaffe Fassett was his friend who still does the knitwear and everything who’s really clever.

How did, can you remember how you felt to have been chosen for that exhibition?

No. Can’t remember going there. I can’t remember anything about it actually. Can’t even remember anything about it whatsoever. It’s a bloody long time ago, you know. I mean there’s always something like that, exhibitions here, in France, or this and that. I can remember going to the Elysee Palace over an exhibition and this thing, that. There was always things. San Francisco or something, you know, that was how it was. But I can’t remember. Can’t remember.

It must have been quite a big deal though, the V and A?

I suppose it must have been. Yeah. Another one, Yves St Laurent copied some designs – is that…

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Oh yeah, that was a big thing, made a thing. I can remember that vaguely ‘cos it was in all the newspapers. He did like a bright satin something or other, and appliquéd, and all the fashion press at the show shouted at, said oh, copy Mr, Mr Freedom they all stood up and said which I, I remembered that ‘cos that was rather a nice thing to happen wasn’t it? I think Yves was a bit put out, but he’d sort of blatantly ripped it off really. And usually could in – you just ripped off things, didn’t they, people, but the fashion press, specially the English press, all stood up and shouted. And it was, all gone in the newspapers, it was one of them little, funny little bits of interest, yeah.

So, what were they, appliquéd t-shirts?

I don’t know what they were, yeah I should imagine so. He probably done something, probably done his own interpretation of it. T-shirt with puffy white clouds going across or something, you know. But it got so fixed with me, that whole look, that I don’t think, anyone else did anything different it was – they still sold it all. I mean they all done jolly well out of it all. There you are.

And what was your attitude towards him doing that?

I thought it was quite funny. A laugh really, wasn’t it? I didn’t really get – perhaps I should have done more, but you know, I thought oh well at least they’re copying you, they must like you know, something innit? Also it helped me with publicity didn’t it? Yeah, I was written up in Women’s Wear Daily in New York. I mean didn’t do me any - it’s gonna do me a favour isn’t it?

One small thing about – maybe small – about Mr Freedom was Mr Feed’em.

The restaurant? Yeah.

Can you tell me something about that?

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The basement, Jon Wealleans did it, it was one of the spectacular thing… all wonderful décor. What I wanted was a sort of soda fountain. I wanted a real sort of soda fountain. That was my idea, but the guy I was sort of doing it with, he wanted a posh rest…

[End of Track 32] [Track 33]

…restaurant, which was a shame in a funny way, ‘cos I mean I’d have all those wonderful colours and beautiful – we had it all custom made, all the tables and chairs and everything. Joe Colombo chairs, I remember, all the plastic brightly coloured Joe Colombo chairs. And lovely murals in 3-D on the wall and lights – it was all custom built. It was a beautiful – but the whole basement of the shop was that, Mr Feed’em. And then we used to do shows there as well, we used to do sort of funny, I used to do like funny theatrical shows. All these odd people who did things, like paint a – anyone shouted out their name, you stood up in the audience and this person would paint a portrait of them in twenty-five seconds, to music. All these kind of weird acts and yeah, so they, kind of people quite liked coming to see that.

Who would be painting the portraits, who, drawing them, who…

I don’t know, I can’t remember. These people who used to, maybe look through Variety magazine and see the acts, say oh, this guy, he does puppets or something, but they weren’t ordinary puppets, they were six foot tall and kind of puppets of… I don’t know, at the time would have been interesting puppets of Tommy Steele or something like that and he’d mime the music and dance the puppets and mad, bizarre, crazy acts that you kind of found. And I kind of did one night a week with all these crazy acts, people like that. Blue bread, soup and all the rest of it. Terrible publicity I got ‘cos I did all these – blue bread, all these vegetable dyes and course people said oh you… I think it put everyone off coming down there ‘cos they didn’t want to eat blue bread, did they? I think that was a bit of publicity that backfired.

Who was your chef?

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Oh a madman. Some mad, crazy kind of Austrian bloke with a big leather jacket and he said he can cut beef gossamer thin and the would be waving a thin knife about. He frightened the life out of me, I think he was like a lunatic. Oh then he went ‘cos he was too mad. Something out of a horror film, he was. He was a good chef though. And then another who come and he’d be alright and then about Thursday night he’d be breaking down crying ‘cos he’d lost all the – but you’d give him his money, he’d get his money on Thursday lunchtime and by Thursday evening he’d lost it all in the betting shop. And the wife with a pram came down, with babies in the pram, saying would you give his wages to me because he can’t be trusted. All this kind of mad stuff, which I wasn’t, I mean I’d never dealt with all this but it kind of, it was a period, everything around me, it all went absolutely mad and everyone went mad. People got their – I suppose they got their own bit of publicity and they went berserk on that. And people come in to work and they’d meet someone in a restaurant and next day they’d say oh is Jean, or whatever her name is, coming to do the American sandwiches or whatever – she’s run off and she’d gone to Miami on the aeroplane with someone she’d met in a restaurant that night at eleven o’clock. And all kind of madness. Sort of, it was a sort of mad thing. I just want to get some cigarettes.

Right, okay.

[break in recording]

Okay. Right, I want to move on to talking about City Lights.

Yeah, that’s it.

But before I do, I just wanted to make sure that you’d said everything you wanted to about what we’ve said up till then.

Well I don’t say I’ve – I could never do that ‘cos the minute you leave the door I think of another load of lovely things, but that’s how life is, isn’t it? I mean I’m sure you don’t want to come and live with me for three months and everything, you’d probably get a lot

Tommy Roberts Page 334 C1046/12/33 more of it, but I mean you know, that’s how it is. It’s what you can think of at the time isn’t it?

Okay.

Nothing, I’ve got no kind of grand statement to make about it all. I suppose you’ll have to – there we are. Okay, next one.

City Lights.

Right. Well Mr Freedom come to an end. What are we gonna do? Well I wanted to, I thought you know, I still, I wanted to do… I thought okay, I’ll do another fashion, do another fashion business, where to go? Well, although the market was still there and packing up and it was a peculiar area, I thought Covent Garden would be good. There was another person there, the girl, [Katharine Hamnett], she become a designer, quite a famous designer. She did that big t-shirt, girls in a great big t-shirts with Polaris missiles or something painted on, you know, Mrs Thatcher and all that. What’s her name? That girl, very nice girl. Anyway, they were there, they did an underwear, had an underwear business. But anyway, that’s just something else. And I had to get a really awkward spot then, couldn’t even have a shop then, had to have the loft of an old banana warehouse in Shorts Gardens. And we had a nice loft, the whole of the roof, raftered big loft. And I thought, well we’ll take that and we’ll do fashion there. What I was thinking for customers to find their way I don’t know, but I kind of, that’s what I wanted to do, I wanted to really go out on a limb. And that’s what I did. Hang on a minute, I’ll just get a fag. I don’t know why, I’m finding it difficult today.

[break in recording]

Yeah, so we took off and, off to Covent Garden and started a business called City Lights Studio. And I wanted a total reaction, total [interruption]…

[break in recording]

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Sound of my munching on tape…

Carry on, yeah, go on. So off we went, began City Lights and I wanted a total change from before. So I said all that pop art and bright colours and imagery, pop imagery, I kind of decorated this place, I sprayed it all in a dark grey. And it had like a gallery there so we could work – I had a sample machine and a little workroom which was visible from the ground floor because it was a gallery. And it was board so we sanded the boards and sprinkled all sort of little gold, bits of gold dust really and then lacquered it all, this floor. And then I hung all big chains from the rafters and on the chains we put metal poles and hung the clothes on those. And we had a table made out of – I went to that shop that sells medical parts, things for trainee doctors and bought skulls and bones and we made a kind of reception table with skulls; plate glass, skulls and bones for the sort of legs. It just looked fantastic. And then the only colour, and then we opened, every garment was made in black, grey, gold or silver and it looked really – oh, and a few men’s clothes in a sort of sky blue, a kind of burnt orange, a few suits in dark green and these colours, it really looked good. And we only played kind of John Cage and this sort of music. So when people first come up there expecting to see like rock ‘n’ roll razzamatazz, it was this muted strange atmosphere. I think it frightened most people. It really was, they kind of got frightened with it, they couldn’t understand it. And there we had, and then again someone who popped up was a girl called Ronnie and she used to make jewellery and she made all these, she used to get all these kind of Perspex flowers and make necklaces. And also we made shoes out of clear acrylic so the whole sole of this high-heeled shoe was clear acrylic. And we made wonderful things like that, they were really nice. Another boy, man who came, he was a milliner and I think he used to be a sort of butler or a gentleman’s gentleman for somebody, but in his spare afternoons he’d come and make two or three hats and we’d have these wonderful hats. It was really, beautiful things. And we did some printing. We did a kind of print – I did all artists’ signatures as a print. I found all the artists’ signatures from whatever, Picasso, going back to Samuel Palmer and people, we did like a, all over print of artists’ signatures. And a few, they were really nice. And then another young fellow come past, he would have been at the Royal College, his name was Kim, I think he come, he was from Singapore. And you know, he started making these kind of rather, these ladies’, strict ladies’ suits in black – what’s the fabric? Lovely wool with trimmings. So that was the whole look, it was austere really. And the

Tommy Roberts Page 336 C1046/12/33 girl who worked in there, helped, again, we had a big French girl, she was six foot four, she used to wear these great big picture, these great big, beautiful big hats herself and she was, she fitted in so I sort of employed her ‘cos she fitted the premises in a way and it was all kind of magic really. And then we used to get, then they used to come up slowly, people and a few Japanese came. And again, one or two of these Japanese became very, a year later they were famous in Paris as – that little short lady who’s very clever who’s very famous. I think they come up expecting to see like jukeboxes and things like that and they saw all this stuff, it was all very, it was kind of rather, very severe and I think it, you know it took their breath away in a way. I mean wonderful interior and I really loved it, I thought it was fantastic. And then we started doing – and we did lovely shoes like thick soled, crepe soled shoes with gold and silver fabric for the uppers and imitation suede that sparkled. And we started to sell these shoes and the men’s suits and we used to do… And then we kind of got David Bowie’s wife, when he, Angie Bowie when she got married came up and we did her a dress and she bought things for David Bowie. And Roxy Music and they bought the shoes and it was a whole new era of people in a way. You know, Bryan Ferrys and David Bowies and it was a sort of change, as it did do, it changed slightly hadn’t it by the kind of seventy-three, seventy-four. And we’d get all these what I call Bowie lookalikes, there was a whole thing for it at the time. Roxy Music lookalikes and if Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music had bought those gold top creeper shoes, they all wanted a pair and it started up again. Publicity and things.

I remember seeing pictures of Roxy Music when they first, I think…

Yeah.

…the first record and there’s a picture of them all lying back in their different clothes.

Yeah, I didn’t do, you know I mean we did sort of stacked boot, we didn’t do that – I don’t think we did that kind of glam rock look, you know, I don’t think someone like, a group like a Sweet or something would buy anything there. Freddie Mercury we sold a few things to, he liked it. But I didn’t, you know, again I didn’t do stage clothing but the suits and the shoes really, more than the kind of you know, it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll really.

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What things did Freddie Mercury get from you?

Well, he bought, I had a very short, like a bolero corduroy jacket. I think it was grey and it had kind of very… and it had a pink trim and every seam was a very thin piece of pink fabric in it and it was a very short bolero. We did a suit like that, David Bowie wore the suit for years and he copied the suit. There’s a short jacketed, wide trousered suit and he wore it and wore it and wore it. He’s wearing it on the album cover of that album Pin Ups and various things, you know.

You mentioned that you’d met David Bowie at Kleptomania.

Mm. Well only ‘cos, well a girlfriend of his used to help us out occasionally on two or three occasions, we sort of become mates really. He used to come round and take bits and whatever. He wasn’t famous then or anything.

So you got to know him in that period when he became very famous?

Yeah.

And what was that like to – can you remember what it was like?

Well it was like all those people, a lot of those people, they struggle for a long time, then they become famous and it was very quick. One minute they’re kind of struggling, they’d made a record and it had been a slight, some sort of success – it was like Elton John, you know they’d made a record and they’d tour in America with this record and it was kind of half famous and then suddenly they took off into famous, outer space famous. And one day that and then one day they can’t come to see you any more ‘cos they were too famous to come out the door really, you know. [laughs]

What’s Brian Eno like?

Don’t know him really very well. I can’t remember, I’m sure he bought things but I can’t really remember. Very talented and I’m a great admirer of his. I would have liked to have

Tommy Roberts Page 338 C1046/12/33 known him more, but I didn’t. Not that I knew, like John Cale. All that kind of area of music was always my favourite area of music.

And Bryan Ferry, what was he like in those days?

Quite charming, I think the success surprised, you know I mean, he’d been to art, he come from art school and he kind of wanted to, you know, he saw it as a way and I wouldn’t say he was the best singer in the world, but he certainly had the look and he fitted, and it’s timing again. It wasn’t glam rock, but it was time for that sort of change of thing. And he, and did you know, I can’t remember that early, that early single was a great record. The songs were good. They were clever, all clever. Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay who played, you know, they’re all clever, all of them and they produced great music. And Bryan had that look and it was – and all them young people wanted to be the lookalike, they wanted to be into it. And you know, it was a time for – and they were all spending a lot of money on clothing of course. And he, I can remember, you know if it was a satin jacket one of them wore, they all wanted that satin – not all of them, but the ones, you know even in those days, a young fellow from Essex who is probably a plumber earning quite a lot of money and some of the clothes were expensive, they was a forty pound thing, piece of clothing and he’d say, oh well I’ll give you ten pound deposit and David Bowie’s appearing at the Rainbow Rooms, the Rainbow Theatre in you know, wherever’s it, north London, in three weeks’ time and before that I’ll come and give, I’ll save up the balance. So the night of concert, the day of the concert he’d come in in the morning with his thirty pound, pay off his jacket, to wear for that evening. That’s how, you know, young men have always been like that. I think it’s changed now, but I think that was, you know, it was the last of that kind of era really.

Did you know – if I’ve got the name right – is it Antony Price, the stylist?

Yeah, Antony Price, I remember him, he was clever. He used to do the stars’ clothes. And then he did Bryan Ferry’s suits and all that. You know he was more of a, you know he could devote more time with Bryan, so Bryan went to Antony and got his suits and he got his stuff from that, you know. But originally, I’m talking about when they first started.

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Oh, so that came later when…

Well, a little bit later. Antony could spend time custom building him stage clothes or whatever his clothes. I didn’t do that, you know, I’m not a stage designer. I run a shop, you know I can’t stop, down tools to make one specific thing – we tried, I’ve often, occasionally did for people. But in the end, you know, when they’re famous they gonna need new outfits all the time. They’ve got to have a good designer devoted to them basically who’s got his sample machinist on hand to keep making stuff. It’s a fulltime job. People like, you know, when they’re touring and round the world like David Bowies and people, it’s a fulltime job for people to do their stage clothes. It’s an industry.

So that famous suits that you mentioned that Bowie wears on Pin Ups – how did that come about? Was that the one where Angie came to you and asked you for a particular…

No, Angie would have no idea about that really. No, it just suited, she thought he’d look at it and she took one back and he tried it on and come and bought, I think we had – we only had a few, we didn’t have much stock – I think two of them in his size, a grey one and a blue one I think. I mean there’s lots of clothes, but that’s just something I always remember.

And so were there people who came to you and said I want a specific thing for…

I wouldn’t do it. I’m not a stage designer, you know, it’s not my trade is it? No. If we could appliqué some – perhaps if someone was there and said would you make this lovely hat or something, we might try to do that, you know. I remember making a hat for Noddy Holder of all people, which is great. I made him a tall kind of top hat. Only that I knew a hat, I knew a theatrical hat maker that was all, in Peckham.

Who was that?

I don’t know, some old man who made hats. And I wanted a top hat but two or three inches, three inches taller than normal. And, you know, stovepipe hat. And I made it for

Tommy Roberts Page 340 C1046/12/33 him, what Noddy Holder wore for his stage act. You know, so I sort of organised it. You know.

You mentioned the hats before – what were the other hats that you had in the shop?

Well, when I first opened I got a lovely – I did these hats and I got Twiggy to do a Vogue cover with one of these hats on. And then we had a big piece inside and Twiggy did a big session for us, so that was quite nice.

With hats?

Hat and clothes.

What were the things that she featured in that?

Well just hat with feathers and you know, I mean you get an old Vogue out from 1973 and you’ll find it.

I’m worried about the person who doesn’t have Vogue 1973. [laughs]

Yeah, yeah. Well I’m sure they have a record, you know, nice sort of velvet and beautifully hand, beautiful handmade hat. I’ve probably got a picture of it here somewhere. You know, I mean – but we had other people as well. I mean it wasn’t just that. But there was never – oh and then we got into a kind of, got a bit of an argument with – that was a funny thing. Vivienne and Malcolm were doing Sex, Seditionaries or something and these boys kept asking – it was an impossible address, no-one could find the shop and all these boys were asking Malcolm where this shop was. You know, where was City Lights Studio. I think he got so annoyed he said he’d only tell ‘em if they gave him ten bob, ten shillings. [laughs] But then he would be – then after work about six, two or three times a week he’d walk over and we’d go and have a drink and you know, sort of, I’d see him every night. He went off then about a year later with, he went off to do the New York Dolls, he went off to manage them in America.

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So, City Lights was hard to find, was it?

Yes. I was a bit over-ambitious, I was a bit too, a bit cocky in a way. You know, people couldn’t find it ‘cos I’d made it difficult to find and you know, people used to wander round Covent Garden for six hours looking, could never find it. And it was too obscure. It was too, being too clever by half. You know, I suppose I should have had a traditional shop in a street really, but that was, I did that instead.

And was it still a fruit market predominantly?

Just changing, they were going. That was all going, coming to its end and it was in transition, Covent Garden. Neal Street there’d have been a few shops. Terence Conran’s sister-in-law, I can’t remember… she already had that like gift shop in Neal Street. There was a few shops, but it was just the beginnings of it. But mostly the inner bit was still, the flower market was still there I think in there, you know. I don’t think, I don’t think Paul Smith had arrived by then. I think that was a bit later Paul Smith, I think he came to Covent Garden, that first shop of his was about 1977. I think. That was a bit later on.

So how did that affect…

And once it started to roll, Covent Garden, course it’s transformed it and they just transformed the whole thing. There was a couple of bars there earlier on. Very early on and it just, I suppose from, it just transformed itself from end of seventy-two, seventy-three through to, by seventy-six it was Covent Garden and tourists and that wasn’t it.

But when you first set up there, how did the fact that it wasn’t a fashion market then, how did that affect how much public you could get in to…

Well it is, you know people wanted to find it, but it made it too much hard work really. You had to be dedicated to find it. You know, Shorts Garden was an obscure street, it had nothing round it at all. There were no shops or anything else, you know, you had to make a specific journey, find Shorts Garden, knock on the door and walk up four flights of stairs to a loft. You know, I think it was asking too much really, of people. That’s what you had

Tommy Roberts Page 342 C1046/12/33 to do, but when you got in there you saw this fabulous loft and it was fantastic and people were sort of surprised and blown away and they thought it was wonderful. So we did have dedicated customers. Models again, top models of the time and photographers. There was, ‘cos the photographers were slightly changing weren’t they? Tony McGee and people like that. Oh, and also it wasn’t long afterwards that Lynne Franks come to Covent Garden and started her business. You know, Lynne, famous public relations woman, fashion woman. Lynne and…

Could you give me some background about…

And I think she, oh and then she said, for free – ‘cos I was Lynne Franks’ first customer actually. When she left this other person that I knew, another man who used to do PR, and she left and started her own firm and I kind of think I was her first client. I think I used to pay like eight pound a week to Lynne to do some publicity for us. Course later on she become a national famous PR lady, you know.

But what was her background before that, d’you know?

She’d worked for the PR people, she worked for – oh I can’t remember his name. His wife was Jackie Modlinger who was the fashion editor of Daily Express, but he used to do some fashion PR at the time. I only knew him ‘cos he’d borrow things off me, I didn’t have to pay him or anything, but he’d do bits and Lynne I think worked in his office and then she broke away, started herself and she made all the big fashion people – Lynne Franks was the name wasn’t she, she was famous.

And did you approach her or the other way round?

She approached me. Very nice. And said I’ll do it – I think also if she got me in her thing she would get other, perhaps it would help to get other clients, I don’t know.

So what did she do for you, what was the…

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I can’t remember now, but she would have got bits of – not very much because she got things, bits of public relations and that. She did get things for us. But I was only there about eighteen months and that was the end of it really.

You talked about the openings that you’d had for the Mr Freedom stores, did you have one for City Lights?

Don’t think so. I think I went so strange I didn’t want an opening. I wanted it to be successful but I didn’t want anyone to know about it, very peculiar, ludicrous sort of dichotomy is it, of kind of sense. Daft really, so I didn’t have an opening, I was absolutely adamantly against opening. You know, and I thought well, no publicity, no anything. But I did ring up you know, she – what’s it called, on the telly, you know, she run the television thing for youth things and – who’s the woman, you know. She gave me a good spread in the Daily Mail ‘cos she worked for the fashion, she was on the fashion of the Daily Mail at the time.

Er, Janet Street-Porter?

Janet Street-Porter.

So she gave you…

And Nova magazine. They found out what I was doing and they, you know, so we started to get some publicity. But the publicity was never the problem. It was kind of, I made it too difficult. The clothes was difficult. You know, we did sort of fantastic shoes and we did beautiful coats, tailored big kind of soft cream coloured wool wraparound coats and things. Wonderful clothing. But it was too difficult and it certainly…

[End of Track 33]

[Track 34]

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It wasn’t for the market that I, you know I mean it wasn’t for sort of young girls was it really? Model, top model, we had all the models all in big fashion, you know, Lauren Hutton and all those people. They all loved it, they bought it.

What else was on the market, what did your stuff compare with for the youth market?

Well I think it was glam rock, wasn’t it, at the time? You know, great big stack boots and you know all glitter, Gary Glitter kind of affairs wasn’t it? I suppose doing that gold and silver we were kind of like that, but we wasn’t, you know, everyone took what, I suppose they took again, they took what we had and blew it up into the extreme end of it all. I suppose, but I wanted it tasteful and nice and I suppose I had a touch of old, Mr Carnaby Street’s thing of Bond Street rather than mass market, you know. I didn’t like the mass market. As I said, if anything sold very well I didn’t want to do it any more, didn’t like it. Didn’t like selling too many of these things, like wanted exclusive. I suppose it was an indulgence on my part to be, ‘cos that’s what I wanted out of life I suppose. It was an extension of that, but too far, I went too far.

To be exclusive you mean, is that…

.Mm. Went too exclusive. No photographs or anything, all that you know, stuff. You can do it, but you have to have, make sure you can support yourself for two or three years to see it through. It would work, you know it was working. In fact when we packed up I got fed up with it, I just got fed up with fashion. I just got fed up with it all. And then, a few things happened. Then we had a burglary which one of the Sex Pistols was involved in. I can’t, saying it on tape ‘cos it’s the truth. But he wasn’t a Sex Pistol then ‘cos they hadn’t formed the group. ‘Cos I knew him. And he nicked a few things and I kind of got soured with it all really and I, I’m fed up with… and I couldn’t, you know, I just got fed up with it really and I thought it was all sort of no importance. Not that I wanted to do something, you know, change – I’m not a person to change the world, not at all, I’m not like that but I just got you know, fed up. And I knew I had to go on for another two years grinding on to do it, which is fine, but of course when I packed up it was just starting to, people flowing in there, it was all happening, starting to happen. And again, other people took the things

Tommy Roberts Page 345 C1046/12/34 up and they made a success of the bits, they took the bits out of the carcass I suppose. And that’s it, that was that.

Can you give some examples of how other people took things but then went on to do something else? For somebody who doesn’t really know seventies fashion, can you give some sort of overview of what happened after?

Well you know, we used to do these, these zip-up sort of – oh I liked plastic at the time and I made these gold and silver zip-up plastic jackets and then like sort of, some with like diamante on. But then people would take that and they would do it kind of with all like bits hanging off, zip-up things in Kensington Market and you know, it become you know, the stuff kind of, all the little details got blown up into the major part of the thing. I don’t know. If it’s a stack boot, you know had two or three, heel was slightly stacked and elegant, ended up a thing where you could hardly walk down a road it was so high. You know, fun, intrigue. A very funny time for fashion really ‘cos it was extreme. But not that extreme that I found it a bit distasteful. [laughs] Maybe later looking back perhaps it wasn’t and I was the one who was not – but I don’t know, you know. Anyway, it didn’t suit me and that was it.

Did you find that having moved from Kleptomania to Mr Freedom to City Lights, did you take the same public with you?

No, always total change in a funny way. You never did in a way. Certain bits of course, but you didn’t, it was all a new lot. Well a new lot had grown up, a new lot had come to the fore, it changed you know, that’s fashion. I mean the Bowie lookalike boys were probably too young when I, a little bit too young when I first started Mr Freedom. They knew about it, but their day came in the early seventies, like seventy-three, seventy-four, not 1969.

When you said, you were talking about the interior of City Lights, who was the team that at that time…

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Oh, I had a guy called Jeff Pine. Jeff. He was married to that girl – oh what’s her name? Famous designer he was married to. Not at the time, but later on. She did a great big floppy t-shirt for ladies, well girls. Famous, eighties designer. Anyway, he did it. I think he was an art teacher in prisons. Used to go round, teach prisoners art and things. Jeff, and he helped me put these things together, you know. And he made another, we made a, and I bought a big sort of like Gothic chair from a place – old theatrical prop it was. It stood about eight foot high at the back, a big Gothic kind of chair and that stood, and I put that behind this desk with the skulls on and you know, did make a few things, it made a strong statement.

How big was the space?

And then we, I think Jeff got these chains, they were new but he kind of made them slightly rusty looking and things, you know. Oh, it was a big space, I suppose it was forty foot by twenty foot. Fifty foot by twenty foot. But then we had a – we did lovely jewellery, really nice jewellery we did. And belts and accessories, really good accessories. Nice quality things.

What was the jewellery?

Oh, we made it out of Perspex and glass and you know. And that’s Ronnie, Ronnie used to go round and get all these like, she might get like a hundred little glass poodles or something and she’d put them together in a sort of bracelet. All different manner of things like that, then make things. Shoes. We had a shoe that had no heel, but it was cantilevered with a metal bar at the base of the shoe so you were high heeled, but you didn’t have a heel. I gave a pair to Molly Parkin. We had a few things like that. Really unusual bits.

Ronnie?

Oh it’s terrible isn’t it? Melia [ph]. Ronnie Melia [ph].

A Royal College person or somebody else?

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No, I don’t think she was really, but she was clever. She was like Pam had been earlier on, she was Ronnie and she’d go out and find bits and all that and it was really, she was clever. It was lucky like that ‘cos if you do those strong things and you take things to the edge and you take a chance with a thing and it makes a strong statement, you do gather, those interesting people want to be associated with it. And then we have another, I can’t remember his name, but he used to, I think he’d done another job. Famous, that famous eighties chef, he’d been his friend, this man and oh, I think he was a friend of, Mo [inaudible] mate so he’d sort of be round Mo’s one or two nights. And he’d come in a couple of afternoons and do some knitting. And he’d knit these like two or three beautiful jumpers and things like that. We had people like that. That makes the whole thing doesn’t it, the whole package.

So would they be one-off pieces?

Yeah, one-off pieces or I think he had a knitting machine. He might knit three or four of the same thing and something else. You know, they were wonderful bits, wonderful things like that which you always need to kind of make that sort of statement. But course now, it’s impractical with today’s way of going on I suppose. And that’s what made it magic.

How much would you have sold something like that for when…

I can’t remember now.

I mean was it…

We were quite expensive – we weren’t expensive but I mean you know, you’d have to kind of spend thirty pound or twenty-five guineas or something, like twenty. You know, we weren’t two pound, you know. They were quite expensive. And then, the first time I’d ever had it I made some dresses and I made a wholesale order for a shop in Japan, that was my first experience ever of any communication with Japan really. They bought these wonderful satin black and gold striped little suits. We made ‘em in a size eight, all sizes and I think I sold – I made twenty-four of these suits to go to Japan. You know, out there.

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That’s how I, that and these Japanese designers who obviously, maybe they were in college or I think they were kind of based in Paris and they started to come in, these Japanese and that’s was the first Japanese influence really. Course they was interested in Bowie and all the rest of it and they wanted to be, they were gonna be fashion designers theirselves. So I think, you know, the reputation of that shop will always stick with those people. Issey Miyakes and all those people, they’ll all know about that you see. City Lights Studio. It’s influenced ‘em.

Did you travel, did you go to Japan?

No, no. A few years later I got opportunities, but somebody else always went. No I never did. But people didn’t go to Japan much then. You know, Japan started at the end of the seventies really. No I used to go to America a lot and things, ‘cos we used to do business, you know. I’d do a trade fair there and I think I went there once to get an award for design or, some stuff, you know. I can’t remember it all now.

When you talked last time about…

Italy, Milan and that.

You talked about the Mr Freedom brand and how that was taken up all around the world by other people and so on, was City Lights, did that become a brand as such?

No, it didn’t really. It was too short-lived really to make that mark. Also it was too way out, too far out. Where Mr Freedom was probably exactly right timing, City Lights was probably a bit early and a bit hard for people to digest and understand. And I made it difficult and I made it too difficult really. And then that was that and that was my fashion thing and everything. And then I went – I don’t know what else I did. Then after that I think I didn’t do anything for a while. Oh then I got involved in sending kind of, I got interested in antiques, art deco and you know, it was all a bit new then and I kind of started to buy and sell art deco things and send ‘em to America and a whole new different business really.

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How did you go about that?

Well I’d always been interested and always collected bits myself. I used to find things and then I thought well I’ll try and sell a few things. And my wife at the time had a, she used to have a little place in Islington in the antiques thing there and she used to sell like Lalique and Gallé glass and all those kind of things which was really sort of, I suppose this is seventy-six really. And I used to sort of do that, sell these things and then in the end – then I used to go out and I’d drive around - ‘cos I like that – I’d drive the van and I was really happy actually, I really enjoyed it. Go out with the van all day long, going round filling it all up with these things, coming back and selling it, to go to America in a container. So I did that for about three or four years.

Where would you go round in the van, was it markets or auctions…

Yeah, all over the country. You know, all over Suffolk, Norfolk and south coast and – not auctions really, no. ‘Cos things appeared and I’d buy all the things off them. Didn’t have any money really but somehow I kind of – I think I borrowed a little bit of money and sold a little collection of things, ceramics and started off doing that. But that kind of got quite biggish thing in the end, I was buying – and I’d go round, I’d have a great big pantechnicon lorry follow me and pick it all up as I bought it. And then it was sort of forty-foot containers going out to – I used to sell it to some… then somebody else would pack it in the containers and send it off to America. I don’t think I was sending it to connoisseurs of fine furniture in America, I think it was just like young couples in San Francisco who wanted something funky to put in their flat, that was the market. And of course a lot of those things of course later on become very expensive, but then it was a bit more plentiful.

So, how did…

I used to go to Paris of course, and buy things in the markets there and all that.

How did the couple in America know about what you were doing, what was the advertising or…

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Well there wasn’t really, I think they just come across me by chance. ‘Cos I think I had a, I ended up having a kind of, not a shop but a place where I used to store this stuff in Forest Hill in south London and I’d have a couple of people buy off me and then these Americans had an agent here looking for things for them and he came round and that’s how I met them and through that I met about, I met people who wanted to buy things from New Orleans and San Francisco and Los Angeles and, lot of Americans, you know, America buying all these things. And France, I sold things. And Italy. Mm. So that was a kind of business. You know, it wasn’t immensely profitable, but you sold lots of things, it’s what made little bits of money on lots and lots of things. But the things that passed through my hands is extraordinary. And of course at the time people were selling up, you know, it was a time when people were selling up all the bits and you’d have extraordinary things. I remember going into this house full of beautiful furniture and the door was open and I don’t know, somebody said oh go and see Mr So-and-so at this thing in case he wants to sell some furniture. Fine, I go round and I heard, ‘Hello, hello’ from the top of the house. So up about four or five flights of stairs and somebody’s laying in bed with a kind of funny hat on. ‘Hello. What d’you want?’ I said, ‘Well I’ve come…’ ‘Oh yeah, yeah alright. Go and get me a bottle of milk, make me a cup of tea and twenty Players and you can have that chest of drawers in the corner’. So it was like that, it was really mad. Lots of mad things like that happened. I remember buying some furniture and there was a wake going on and the dead body of the person who’d died was laid on the kitchen table and all the relatives were arguing around it. And I said, ‘Oh ‘scuse me, I’ve come for the…’ ‘Oh yes, take that. What d’you want, that long case clock? Just take it’. Give me, how much, yeah, yeah and they was all arguing over the person was hardly cold. But that was that business. Very strange, funny in a very sort of, in a funny way [laughing] wasn’t it? Then I used to buy things off a man called Dead ‘un. His nickname was Dead ‘un ‘cos he was a gruff, humpty-backed man. You’d say, ‘Hello Harry, what you got…?’ He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘I’ll have a dead ‘un in a couple of days’. So he means that someone was on their last breath he knew about round, who’s dying and he’d say well there’s a dead ‘un on for about Friday. He’d say, you come round Saturday, we’ll see what we’ve got. I mean it was [laughing] – from the kind of things, finesse of fashion into that world. But it was really good, I really liked it.

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Can you describe a few of your favourite things that you found during that time, some of your favourite pieces?

Oh God. Oh God. There’s too much, it was… it was so much. Oh, I mean you’d just find lovely, [inaudible] and really good French proper art deco things and that you’d find. And it was always a little bit of money even then. I used to like the glass, big pieces of Schneider glass. I mean you like it all, you know, liked all those things and then suddenly, it all went, I’ve never been a hoarder really. I come and go. I like it, see it, pleasure of holding it, looking at it, fabulous. Then about two days later I say I’m fed up with this, does anyone want to buy it? Comes and goes.

Did you do any research about how to price these items or…

There’s no research to be done. Everything I’ve done is a new thing. There’s no books on the price guide to art deco or art nouveau at the time, it was all new, it was brand new. New, no-one else did it. That came later. Not many people dealt in it. Two or three, you know, there was two or three dealers of course there was, but it was all knew. I think the first book, yeah there was a couple of books on art nouveau but not price, I mean art nouveau was a bit earlier. I mean that was kind of, people started to appreciate that in the mid sixties and things. And then you got modernist furniture and things, that was later. But then all the price guides, you know, there wasn’t a sort of, there’s no ground rules with it.

Modernist furniture – what…

Well I mean kind of art deco really is all done before the First World War, you know. Mostly in England, it wasn’t, it’s what I call 1930s suburbia, it’s a different thing altogether. But French things, art deco. By 1925, twenty-six it was – and then people like Gropius, Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, and modernism come into play and that was a whole different, another whole thing. You know, which ended up as everyone having the black Roman, black leather and chrome chair in the house didn’t they, you know, in the seventies. But that was the repro stuff, you know. That’s a whole area, there’s lots of

Tommy Roberts Page 352 C1046/12/34 experts much more than me and they’d covered that to death, all that area. So I did that and then, then…

Could I…

Yeah.

Sorry. Could I ask about something, a sort of side thing maybe, I don’t know how important it is. But your involvement in music, in…

Oh yes, we did a thing on – that’s right, you’ve reminded me. After City Lights Studio you know, Arthur Brown had made one record, I kind of knew him a bit and got him a record deal with someone and did a little bit of commission from that. He didn’t make a record ‘cos he was a ruinous person anyway and ruined it all, but that’s how it is. And then, then we wanted to do a group of just young blokes sort of singing, me and my friend. And sort of, we started this – but in the meantime somebody had introduced me to Ian Dury and Ian come up and you know, he had a record deal and he wasn’t happy where he was – the Kilburns, a group, the Kilburns. And I got him a record deal and I went on the road for him for a year. Just went round on the tour, I said I’m gonna come on that on the road with you and then I drove the van with someone else and I went on the road with them, organising their trips, like McLaren went with the New York Dolls on the road, I did the same but I went with Ian Dury. And I did that for a while.

So how had he been introduced to you? What year was it when that happened?

Seventy-five.

And he already had the record deal?

No, he didn’t. That’s the problem, he had, but no good and I got him away from that record deal and got him a new one. That was the whole point of it. ‘Cos they couldn’t, you know, they just thought it was ridiculous this group, they’re never gonna make a shilling, so they was desperate to get rid of him so I got him away from the record deal for

Tommy Roberts Page 353 C1046/12/34 nothing, I got the two van, all the musical instruments and everything part of the deal and I got him his instruments, his vans and paid nothing to release and got a release for him, so he went on the road and we got another record deal. And he made a record called Rough Kids which failed, but it was a great record. And then we come to our natural end, me and Ian and then course he, off he went and made New Boots and Panties and was a worldwide success. Funny isn’t it? Timing, my timing was a bit out there. But we was great friends, Ian, I was only delighted that something happened. He was clever Ian, he’d been at Royal College, he’d been at Royal College of Art. He knew Peter Blake well, it was his friend you see.

What was he like, when you knew him at that stage?

Well he wasn’t that young, he was my age, you know. He wasn’t sort of, he was my age, he was quite a young man, but he’d been married, he’d been to art school, he’d been earning a salary, paid for the wife and family and he just decided one day he couldn’t do it any more and he wanted to go out and do music. And that’s what he did and then he started a group called The Kilburns and gathered a few people round him and did art school gigs and he was kind of quite clever and then he started to write his own songs which are wonderful. He was clever Ian, very clever. Wonderful songs and things. You know, gruff. ‘Ere are then, let’s do that’ and everything, but of course gruff, but actually very very clever. And a good artist as well, funnily enough, very good artist he was, Ian. Well you had to be to get into the Royal College years ago, to be accepted, you’d have to be good wouldn’t’ you? And plus he was, plus he had you know, he’d had polio so all his left side was ruined. Whole half of his body was ruined and he still went out there and did it all and everything. He was marvellous really.

What was his art like?

He was just quite, a very good artist, you know, commercial art and things he’d do. Mm. He was you know, very good.

What was it…

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And through him I like Gordon House and people like that. No, he was good. He was rather accomplished actually. And he played that down, he never, you know. But he was very good with the lyrics of the songs and you know, he did that. And then there was all that pub rock, what they called pub rock, it got called. Doing that, like Dr Feelgood and a few other groups. But Ian was the one who, he was really, he stood out really. He was quite clever, he’d make out he was in the pub rock thing, but he wasn’t really, he was on a different plane really, but you know. They didn’t understand that at the time.

When you say he was an accomplished artist, what was the style of work, can you compare it to…

Well I don’t know, I can’t compare it. I thought, you know he hadn’t had a big career as an artist. He’d come out there, I think he did some commercial art but you could just see, you know he could draw and he could you know, he was good. But he played that down. But he said, I’m good but I’m not good enough. So he knew he was not gonna make a big name for hisself as the artist but he had that burning desire to do something. So he did it through writing the songs and you know.

How did you go and get him the record deal – what was the process?

Well I kind of just went and he made a demonstration tape and then I took it along to Pye Records as it was called at the time, and played it there and they took him on and we made a couple of records. But he didn’t, but the person who owned Pye saw Ian you know, as – I think we made a record, Crippled in Love, which is a great record, but I think the actual manager who was a very straight sort of man was appalled by it all. You know, ‘cos the drummer was, the base player was what you call diminutive size, you know he was only four foot ten and the drummer was in a wheelchair. It was kind of very interesting, but course, to the manager of Pye, he thought this was ridiculous, most ghastly affair. In fact the man who did sign us up I think got the sack over it all.

So, you were representing them like a manager almost?

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Yeah like a manager. Yeah, a manager. And trying to help him really. And trying to earn myself some money as well of course, you know, not a charity.

Did you give Ian any advice as regards image?

Yes. But then he was quite good with his own image in a way. I did make a couple of suits for him and they were great, but he didn’t, funnily enough he was better off with his own image. And so I sort of, I did try to do, I did a concert in Chelsea in that cinema in Chelsea and I did a, I got people who’d worked with me in Mr Freedom to do a backdrop of Tower Bridge and all the lighting, it was fantastic. And he wasn’t known then and we sort of half filled it and he did a concert, I remember that. That was great, but you know, as I say, the music industry people can be hanging from the chandeliers for years, the group, but he didn’t, you know, it’s records you’ve got to do. And that came later. Oh I think they made a record, had an argument with Paul McCartney ‘cos he had rights to Rupert the Bear and he’d never done anything with them and I went to the Daily Express, said I want to do a record, Rup… I don’t know why, but somebody had written a song about Rupert the Bear and I thought it was quite good. So he said, ‘Well Paul…’ I said, ‘Well I want to do one’. He said, ‘Well you can do it as well’. He said, ‘The Daily Express owns it, not Paul, not you, you can do it’. So we made it and Paul McCartney got very uppity about it and shouting at the Daily Express chairman and everything over it all. So, that was just a funny little incident, a little bon mot is it? Whatever it’s called, I threw that in for you.

[laughs] When you say…

I tried to make some clothes for Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney as well. But, the things they wanted I couldn’t do them, they were all like… That was just after that, then this is before that and they wanted like denim, topstitched denim with suits with like cloverleaf collars and that. I just couldn’t bring myself to make them in a funny way. And they had this sort of assistants, oh you know, they’re getting on my nerves keep on asking for these clothes. And I said, oh I can’t do things, you know I don’t want to do that. I said I’m not a you know, dressmaker. And I did go and see ‘em, but it all didn’t work out anyway. Which pleased with me ‘cos I didn’t like, you know, I didn’t like the things. As I

Tommy Roberts Page 356 C1046/12/34 always say, it’s not my area, stage. Immediately people are on stage they’re desperate for people to make them clothes, that’s what they think. So if you can, you can always get a fantastic thing making people’s clothes, but it’s not me.

[End of Track 34]

[Track 35]

And then, oh then I made a record, David Essex was my friend. And I kind of made a record. He said I should make a record and I went on the television a couple of times on programmes – and I can’t sing or anything - but half talking this record, and I think we sold a few. Just another little thing what happened, I ended up making a record with David Essex producing it. [laughs] Mad incident, isn’t it?

What were you doing on the record?

Singing. I don’t know… I made this record and I can’t even remember how it goes now. Just something that I did.

Was it…

I did all them things. Made a record, done all them things. Then I did a couple of little bits of film things and that and then…

Film things?

Yeah, little bits. I asked to be in – one of them Australian guys had made one of them films and I was in a couple of things – oh a couple of commercials and you know, bits I used to do.

Appearing in them?

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Mm.

Did you enjoy that?

I quite enjoyed it, mm. Didn’t knuckle down. If I’d knuckled down I probably could have made a career of it, but I didn’t knuckle down. You know, it’s not really, it’s quite interesting but not like the be all and end all of everything.

In all your various projects, would you…

Well we ain’t got to the end of ‘em yet.

No, I know. But it seems to be important how you get along with people, your relationships with people.

Yeah, yeah. Well it always is, isn’t it? I think that’s the most difficult thing of all to get along with people isn’t it? You do for a certain time, then you find that really – I’ve always found that difficult. I don’t think I’m awkward, I think they’re kind of, they always want more out of you don’t they? They see you as this sort of conduit for them to be, you know, I’ve always had blokes who, I get in with them, you know they’re sort of friendly for five minutes then like it doesn’t seem to be a week later they’re leaving their wife in sort of the suburbs and babies to come into London and want to be involved in fashion or music, whatever. It’s so funny and people are kind of, you know, I’ve always got that round, you know I’ve always had sort of that really, round me. [laughs]

And have you found it hard to work with people that you haven’t liked, basically, to…

Well I try to like everyone. I haven’t got sides like that, until someone… you know, I always see people, they’ve got their failings, well they might have reasons for it. No, I’m not a spiteful person like that, I don’t think anyway. I don’t hold grudges, not for long, you know. After twenty-five years I’ve usually forgotten ‘em.

Okay, next bit. What’s the next after…

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A cup of tea for me and then I’ll do, we’ll go on to Practical Styling.

[break in recording]

So, dates for Practical Styling - when did that start up?

I said I did the sort of, sort of second-hand furniture dealer, might have been selling art deco and modernism furn… you know, until about 1980. And then I got involved in sort of, kind of – oh no, that was just… I know I got involved in something, I got involved in. Can’t remember it now. Anyway, I used to go to America a bit, say late seventies, eighties. I used to like going down the Bowery and seeing all those kind of shops that sold all that wonderful American kind of home stores really, you know, those big vacuum cleaners and shelving and housewares, shops, and all that. And I thought, oh they’d be good, like do a modern kind of – what do they call those shops, you know houseware shops, shops that sell cleaning materials and you’d have like things for a janitor like lovely big plastic buckets for mopping the floor and mops and – all these things. I thought oh it’d be wonderful to have a shop with all this kind of real great kind of housewares – what do they call, you know, what do they call those shops where they sell nuts and bolts, what do they call ‘em? Come on, what do they call ‘em? What do they call those shops that sell all…

Hardware.

Hardware, yeah. Hardware store. I couldn’t think of it. I thought I’d love to do a wonderful hardware store in central London and if you wanted a lovely big chrome vacuum cleaner or a big, smashing big broom, or a – all those kind of things. And I thought it’d be really wonderful, real kind of smart hardware store. And this just come into my brain. And I had another mate who felt, similar lines and he come to America and we started to buy all these like, those swingbins, those dome top trash bins, American trash bins and things like that. And we brought back a twenty-foot container of all this stuff. Self-assembly shelving. And there was a book came out about 1980 called Hi Tech and it was all about stuff that, readymade, you know people made like a coffee table ‘cos they

Tommy Roberts Page 359 C1046/12/35 put four or five house bricks on the floor and put a big sheet of glass on it and that kind of look, the hi-tech look. And they wouldn’t have an ordinary refrigerator, they’d have a big industrial refrigerator, and I really thought it was great, you know. And I thought well let’s try and do something like that. So we brought a twenty-foot container back and I actually – I was talking about Lynne Franks – I did her office with all these swingbins and then I started to do – I wasn’t interested in design, I just wanted real practicality and real like, the old-fashioned steel office desk. But where it had always been like grey, like battleship grey, I started to enamel ‘em in bright green and I did, and black and real bright white and they sort of looked like something else then. And then I’d buy that old traditional office chair and then I would spray it maybe in Hammerite finish or you know, like a speckled finish. Take off the original and reupholster it in like vinyl, but a grey vinyl with pink piping or pale blue vinyl with a red piping and with that, with the kind of shimmering white desk it looked something else, it looked hi-tech and it looked kind of practical. There was a practicalness about it – not practical, is the wrong word, it looked a good look [laughs] I suppose, you know to me, it looked that kind of, you know. And the old like medical, like things from sort of hospital stuff, those medical cabinets in stainless steel and glass, or aluminium and glazed and sort of took all the paint finish off them, took them back to the basic metal and they looked good. And I thought this is a real good look, so anyway. Underneath Centre Point, that famous building in the centre of London, a shop had remained empty, was an empty shop. A big Boosey and Hawkes, the music people. And they didn’t know what to do with it, they couldn’t get rid of it, no-one wanted it and it was called a recession on at the time, eighty-one I’m talking about now, eighty. And they just didn’t… and I said, oh we’ll take it off, we’ll try and pay for it. They said, oh yeah lovely, you take it over. So anyway, we sort of got this shop, a great big shop in the middle of London, very cheap rent. So we cleared it all out, took it right back to the basic concrete walls and floor. Sprayed it all in that kind of flecked paint that they use to spray lavatories with, in grey and black with white flecking, polished the floor and brought some stuff back from America, put it in there, got these desks and polished the steel desks up and put them in there. Also that kind of rubber flooring, that studded flooring was just new at the time. It’s quite expensive but it was like studs, flooring, sort of late seventy, eighties look you know, that studded – so we had rolls of rubber flooring in there. Then I used to go round and – I found an interesting brush, scrubbing brush, I’d buy it. Anything that was kind of good, kind of not bad quality but had a look about it. And we called it

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Practical Styling. Big window in the thing there. I think we did a window with all – trying to think what we did, we did something. When did we open? I think it was summer, beginning of eighty-one we opened there. I think I did a window with all like hundreds of these kind of big brooms that they you know, sort of in America they brush down the railway stations with, and made a sort of collage of these kind of like a Kandinsky looking collage in the window of that. And off we went and people started to like that and in they came. And then I, I started – anything funky, if it was like plastic beakers with spots on that I’d find in these wholesalers, had been laying there for years or not years, you know, no-one bought them so I’d sell like six pink plastic beakers with blue spots on them for like one pound ninety-nine for the set of six and all this kind of thing. And rubber mats, those sort of rubber mats, so people instead of having a table cloth would have put six black rubber mats down to put the – you know, they were nice things, they were nice things. And nice mats for the, those coconut mats and all manner of things like that. Then, got into doing a bit of our own styling. So instead of doing like a mat with ‘Welcome’ on, I’d do a mat, I’d get it kind of dyed sort of, instead of it being brown I’d kind of get it dyed sort of goldy colour and instead of putting welcome it’d say ‘Hello’ in great big pop art letters on it, so you rubbed your feet on that. And then I got, I know I knew somebody who did enamel finish spraying or epoxy resin finished spraying, so I bought a load of those ordinary galvanised dustbins, wholesale, but I sprayed ‘em up gold, Schiaparelli shocking pink, green, blue. Good colours. And I put them in there and it was – where every bit of housewares up to about 1980 had been sort of beige or lovat green, you could start coming and buying a scrubbing brush in yellow and you could buy a broom in sort of pink and things like that, and it was just you know, it was sort of like really – people had never seen it before. And we used to sell all these things and that was sort of, people, oh they liked that and they all come. You know, we used to sell all these things. Then we started doing a bit of furniture and then Memphis come out, started all that Memphis furniture. We’d been playing about with that sort of post-modernist look and so we did a few things like that. Well that brought the colour back into your home didn’t it, you know. But I thought the main thing was, was using ordinary things or very, very, very familiar with and looking at them again. Not designing a new product, but using a basic product like a trashcan or a wastepaper basket or a metal tin tray and re-looking at it and doing it in kind of unusual colours and things like that. Then we started doing duvets and we’d do like designs of sort of angels on them. And then somebody was making, they

Tommy Roberts Page 361 C1046/12/35 were a carpet maker, beautiful quality carpet. He said I’ve got big looms, I’ve got space at the end of it, if you want to do a nine by twelve carpet, do it. So we did a carpet of, a Frank Stella carpet, we did a – they were really beautiful those carpets – we did a, trying to think. Did a beautiful carpet of those sort of prehistoric wall painting in the caves in France of the bison and all that, we did that as a carpet. We did – lots of things like that, you know. And then bathmats, shower curtains. Then curiously then it started people who have this, they come in don’t they, ‘cos they catch on to it and a girl used to do a silkscreen, beautiful shower curtains with wonderful images on of like… trying to think of the images. Kind of all little bits of kind of 1950s furniture or something and you know, these shower curtains in lovely colours. ‘Cos they weren’t around, you couldn’t buy a thing like that then. So you could have a lovely electric blue curtain with gold kind of, I don’t know, trees or something. You know, I can’t remember now, but all these things we used to do. And we got tinwear made; trays and biscuit tins and all that with – that we had with like a sort of, we did a take-off of Piranesi. Architectural sort of drawings and we printed those on all tins and mugs and all that kind of thing, and glassware and all these things we did. So we sort of rethought, you know, your living thing. It was all before all that you know, lifestyle – the word hadn’t been invented then really. Don’t think there was even a magazine. I think maybe, well there was Ideal Home and those magazines. I think that magazine, one good quality magazine started. We used to get in design magazines and we got the publicity and you started up again with all that, you know. That was a – then we did bicycles even, and things. We did like sort of strange tandems. [laughs] Any interesting, like a sit up and beg tandem, old firm up in the north of England used to make those old-fashioned tandems and we had one of those in the shop, and all these kind of things. But Nilfisk, big chrome vacuum cleaners. We sold a lot of those.

Who to? Who would…

Oh people – I mean again, like I suppose advertising agency offices, people for their home, shops who wanted nice sort of bright green desk in there, fashion… people for their fashion showrooms and we did all that, you know. That was a whole thing.

Would they have been expensive items though?

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I think a desk was about two hundred and fifty pound. It wasn’t much more than an ordinary desk from the office furniture shop but it was restyled with our way of doing it. And they looked great; I remember selling, you know somebody had a big office and they had twenty bright green desks in two lines of ten with all the chairs behind. It really made… it really was wonderful. Like a big office with all these things. Course later on come computers and it kind of knocked that out a little bit, but it was just before computers and all that and it was early eighties. We did loads; floorings we did, loads of things. I’m trying to think of some of the products, some funny things we sold. Oh, and then about 1982 there was a big thing for, cocktails was a big thing. So people didn’t know where to go and get all the bits for cocktail, you know all the accessories, and we used to buy them in America and bought all the cocktail, the umbrellas and all the funny little bits that stood on the edge of the glass. Cocktail, that was a big business for us. And we used to buy that, not Steuben, but one of those big American glassware firms and we used to buy all those wonderful big champagne glasses and great big chunky beer glasses and big wonderful, wonderful big glasses for Coca-Cola and you know, really smashing things they were. And we used to import all this stuff and we used to sell boxes and boxes of it all. And that Fiestaware in America, where you buy the kind of – see America’s funny, they don’t change, they make the same product for years and years and years and years, and we used to buy these folding – I forget what they call it, it’s a famous, every institution, every store’s got these folding chairs in America and they’re quite lovely, nice shape, basic shape and we used to buy them in bright colours and sell lots of those in there. And Fiestaware, which was like a big – I remember selling Paul Smith some for his shop – big box of Fiestaware, but it was all, it was all, big tea set, big coffee set, but every colour would be a – and we’d change ‘em round so a green cup went with a yellow saucer and a red teapot had a blue lid on it and it all looked like Mickey Mouse, not Mickey Mouse, but it all looked like some sort of, some other world, really. And I used to buy these big knives and forks; we found these traditional knives and forks, well they were like twenty- five per cent bigger than normal knives and forks, made in Portugal, so you had like great big like knives and forks, and chunky and they were really – you know, all interesting things like that. [laughs]

It sounds like you were importing stuff from all over, England and…

Tommy Roberts Page 363 C1046/12/35

All over, anywhere we saw anything interesting, we did, yeah.

So how did you find the people, the firms to…

We went out to trade fairs or go round, you sort of try and investigate it. You send off for catalogues. Not much home-grown, but you know there was a firm in the north of England – a lot of these firms were coming to the end of their life, we found them. Somebody made old-fashioned lino and we got ‘em to reproduce the one with all the roses on or something. You know, give it a new lease of life. So, you wouldn’t want a whole floor of bright roses, old linoleum, but you’d like a nice couple of yards for the kitchen or the lavatory wouldn’t you, it’d be great. So we used to sell all these things and give these people orders for things they hadn’t produced or thought about for years. Specially these rubber mats, we used to sell – I think they were made in Ireland or something, Northern Ireland, but they were rubber, just, The Rubber Company they were called [laughs] and they would do these lovely sort of old-fashioned rubber and you put your drink on this little black rubber mat. And again, they had nice colours. All these kind of products and we’d re-think it and we’d maybe ask them to do it in another colour or reupholster it in another way or you know, maybe take the wheels off it, lower it. You know, certain things that we would do. Or put great big smashing great big round – instead of the modern plastic wheels, we’d take them off and maybe put great big enormous – not enormous – but big wheels, big chrome wheels on it, give it another look. A traditional – I have a great love of traditional things, giving it another look. Somebody made kettles, plastic kettles, so he did ‘em in greens and reds for us so we had – we weren’t long, it wasn’t another year before Habitat started doing green and coloured swingbins and all, they all caught on to it and course you know, we couldn’t get into it on that level, but they really caned it, came in with that market. The manufacturers when they got, they had no idea and then suddenly they got clued up and they were doing it all then. And everything – then there was that black and white, everything had to be in black and white didn’t it? Everything in the home had to be black or chrome.

What did you make of Habitat?

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Oh, it was always very good, Habitat. It was a good store, good store. Conran, yeah clever. He was a good designer, but… You know, he was quite important for Britain, design. He tried hard with the design. But there was no design before about 1980. We’d had a few… design didn’t start till the late eighties. Then a few companies would take on a designer, you know. Now we’ve got designer vacuum cleaner, you know, it’s part of our you know, part of our, you know it’s lifestyle, it’s design. But then there wasn’t design. Certainly big manufacturers weren’t, they’d only copy abroad, stuff from abroad, they wouldn’t employ designers. There were no designers, you know, they wasn’t employed. So it’s kind of – there’s always been a fight for design in Britain. It’s never a thing that… magazines did, as I said, clothes and pop and that but they didn’t design. They might cover films and theatre but, and now of course design, they do that as well.

Were there any…

People, you know big designers can be – you know, Philippe Starck and that, heroes to people. They’re not heroes, but they’re famous. Years ago people didn’t know, you know if you weren’t involved in architecture and that you wouldn’t know who the designer was.

But were there any design magazines whilst you were doing Practical Styling?

There were more kind – yeah, there was Interiors I think had just started. Interiors mag, just started I think then. There was Ideal… all the traditional ones and then there was a kind of rather, they were all rather formal, it was like the Design Council magazine. There was one, Interview, there was one other. There was one other – Blueprint – that started. I think that was, Blueprint, that was quite good, you know. That was just starting up, all that feeling for those things. And then like magazines like iD started didn’t they, and they would do something on perhaps design or a shop that sold art and design. It was just the start of all that.

So, was Practical Styling, did it feature in any of these magazines?

Yes, we used to get pieces in the magazines. Originally I didn’t want it in mag… one of my first publicity idea was we’ll all wear white coats and we all had a thing that said

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Practical Styling on the thing, it was all very low key, we were a hardware store with a big – you wore a white coat and you served in a hardware shop. That was my feeling, very – ‘cos there was a feeling at the time called ‘Back to Basics’. It would never work ‘cos people want glamour, but you know, people started to do packaging which was only like a brown box with a stamp on it saying the product or – it was a feeling for back to basics. But of course, you thought people would go back to basics but they didn’t, they wanted more intricate kind of electronic stuff anyway. But there was a feeling for that. So where we were hardware, we ended up selling sort of pieces of furniture like Memphis style things and it was a bit like that. And then we did, we did a few like leather, lovely leather club chairs in a traditional style and all that kind of thing.

Can you tell me…

So it ended up styling up anyway, but I didn’t want the style, I didn’t want the design, too much design input but of course it ended up like that [laughs], you know, it did. ‘Cos when I started doing a pink dustbin you start change, you make it, you start thinking different.

Can you tell me a bit more about Memphis furniture?

Well it was, I went to the, you know it was in… when was Memphis? Eighty-one I think at first – eighty, eighty-one. I went over to the Milan furniture fair and I went to this Memphis and I went to the opening and there was all this furniture, wonderful furniture there. It was very, very interesting. It was post-modern furniture. You know what that is don’t you? Well, you know, you have to look it up. Your people, they would know that, if they’re listening to me they would know what that is. Or they’d you know – it changed. But it was only short-lived ‘cos it was too way out again, it was only a short-lived thing. People really wouldn’t live for that sort of – it was like children’s furniture in enormous size, you know, and laminates and that and bright colours. It was great, but of course people really couldn’t live with it in their house. They really wanted to kind of, Mies van der Rohe copy of the chrome and leather chair really, in their home. So we ended up with a load of chrome and black leather which I’ve always hated.

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So, did you feel that you had to have that in the shop, the chrome and…

Yes, well it was again, most people didn’t have that, you know even that was very exciting for most people. So I did a sort of, we did a little bit of that kind, you know, chrome and black leather.

Although you didn’t like it yourself?

Well I always thought it was too much of a pastiche of the past in a way. You know, I do like things that have a little bit of – but the past mixed in, in a way that brings in the past with the present as an eclectic mix or you know, it was too – I don’t like just a total pastiche really. [laughs] But it did fit in with modern, ‘cos people, where they were living, they were living in flats and small you know, it fitted the look didn’t it, at the time. You know, like just in the late seventies all the sort of Rennie Mackintosh reproduction furniture fitted the look I suppose, you know.

Did you have any feeling, was… The changes that happened in the eighties from the seventies, did you take any interest, were you interested politically or in cultural things that were going on?

Yeah. You know, well things, you know it doesn’t just, it’s not – I can’t remember one sort of… Well, you know, I mean Practical Styling was a sort of eighties thing wasn’t it, it wouldn’t have happened in the seventies, like thinking about hardware and that. You know, things do change don’t they? Shops change and whatever. It was the start of all eighties thing wasn’t it, with Canary Wharf and all Covent Garden and thousands of gift shops. Eighties kind of - then it changed and then of course technology started up didn’t it? You know, you could walk down the bottom of your garden with a big, great big phone and talk to someone and you know, that was all new and all that…

[End of Track 35]

[Track 36]

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You know, that’s sort of changed. Funny thing is, people thought they would have more leisure and they couldn’t, they had to work harder than they thought, you know. London started to change, be more difficult, more crime. You know, the whole of London, it started to change really. The restrictions; you can’t drive, you can’t park, you can’t – you know, it’s all… I suppose you have to with all these millions of people, it has to be a bit more like that. It was definitely changed, it did change. There was that thing of ‘greed is good’ and all the rest of it. But there’s always been that, as I say, it’s not an eighties thing, everyone’s been like that. But you have to be a little bit like that sometimes, you’ve got to want things. I’m always very suspicious of people who don’t want anything, that always worries me. You know, you want, I like the basic-ness of the bloke who wants a flash car and he wants this and wants that. But now of course it’s overdone. Not only do they want it, they think they’re entitled to it. That’s a different thing, but you know, you strive to get yourself a little, nice car and that. Nothing wrong in that, I mean it’s a great, you know, it’s how things are pushed forward. You might now of course, you might think they should be pushed back a bit. I can’t really see what the reason for everyone has to communicate instant with each other. I wouldn’t mind going back to a letter and it takes a week to get to Manchester and reply. But… I’m trying to think, what else. And course all the bars and the – you know, a pub was a pub and, well I’m not a pub person so I didn’t like pubs very often, but then in like the early eighties you went into Soho and there was the Soho Brasserie, somebody had converted a pub where you, the tables were on the pavement and it was like a brasserie place where you could come and get… you know, that was the beginning of all that, and the gastro pubs. You know, it’s all totally, totally changed. The eighties were changing and course that’s just – there was a blip in the late eighties, early nineties ‘cos of recession, but then of course by ninety-four it started to gather pace again and it’s pushing it forward more.

Politically, did you take any interest in politics during the eighties?

We mustn’t mention politics – my wife is an extreme left winger. Arthur Scargill should be Prime Minister – my wife. And I’m a right winger. So, I say she puts her poster in one window and I put mine in the other. I’m right of Genghis Khan actually now. I never used to be, I am now, yeah. Yeah. Genghis Khan was too lenient for me. Mm, mm. But of course, you see people, they will, you know as I say we can’t predict the future ‘cos it

Tommy Roberts Page 368 C1046/12/36 always goes wrong, but there will be a time when it will get a little bit draconian. There will be a period of that because you know, at the time it’s kind of people, it’s getting kind of – well ‘cos people are getting ghettoised, you know. People say they might be left wing or whatever they are, but they don’t want, they want to live in certain places not others and they want the children to go to certain places to school not the other. So it’s getting ghetto – you know, it’s getting like that. That is the sadness of it all. People say well I’m not getting on the bus ‘cos it’s, I’m too frightened to get on the bus after seven o’clock at night, and things like that. And there’s always been that, you know, it’s not all you know, but it seems to be much, much more than I’ve ever experienced. Children get sort of robbed on the way to school ‘cos they want their trainers off ‘em and things. I mean [laughs] something’s got to, you know, something will happen with all that. And the divide of poor and rich is gonna be more and people are gonna want things they know are unobtainable. But now people do think they should have it, you know. You know, I want, you know. You hear these things saying, you know, I want that for my baby, my baby should have those shoes and you know, hundred pound pair of trainers and all that. I mean it’s crazy. I mean it’s crazy. But then there’s another lot of people, they go round the second-hand shops, which I do personally and you find quite nice things reasonably priced. And clothes are cheap aren’t they? The designer centres, you can go and buy three t-shirts for six ninety-nine and things like that. I mean there is a load of things that are phenomenally cheap in this world. And there’s things are very expensive. Like where one lives, you know. Blokes who earn forty, thirty-five thousand a year salary have to sleep on mates’ sofas and things, you know. So it’s sort of, it’s a topsy-turvy out of kilter world, isn’t it?

Where did you live after you moved from Blackheath in the seventies?

I had a flat, I always had a flat in Holland Park. Lovely flat, big balcony and big you know, windows. Not a big flat, only one small bedroom and like double doors, double glass doors overlooking the street. Nice flat, I lived there for a long time. I had the best of it round there, Notting Hill Gate. I had the very best of it. Yeah, you know, sort of mid to late eighties and the early nineties, the best time for that part of the world.

Was it?

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Mm. I think so.

D’you mean socially?

Socially and everything, mm.

And what was your social life at the time, during you know – well, it’s a long period but…

Well, my life was, I’d watch the News at Ten, I’d go round to the 192 Wine Bar at ten thirty and I’d maybe have something to eat and some drinks. Well when that ended I’d go to a nightclub and stay there till four in the morning and come back and carry on till about six in the morning. So I was up, for about four years that was my life. I would go abroad occasionally, I never sort of, I never… it was at night, I was asleep in the day and about at night-time.

What nightclub?

All of them, I mean I don’t know. It was just before The Groucho and that – although I, member of that – but, where did we used to go? Oh, used to go to all those kind of, you know there used to be those, it was the start of all those, you know there’d be so-and-so’s night on Thursday or you’d go to Camden Palace on Friday ‘cos Steve Strange would do a night and all these kind of things, I used to do all those things. I liked all that.

So, was that 1980-ish?

Early yeah, sort of early eighties, late eighties and then it changed. Then I think I used to go to kind of like Bath at weekends and sort of country houses [laughs] and things like that. I had quite a nice time really. Then I started to do the sixties furniture and I kind of, my flat I made into a bit of a showroom. There wasn’t many people doing it then, it was very - about eighty-nine, about 1989, ninety and I started to be interested in all those like sixties things and I had a guy who was a big collector, quite rich and he’d say anything you find, and I used to find all things – all wonderful things now would be a lot of money but

Tommy Roberts Page 370 C1046/12/36 they weren’t then ‘cos not many people was interested. But I’d buy him all, you know, pop art lithographs and furniture from famous designers and he built a big collection. Well of course I think the recession struck him, he had to sell it all and like all these things it all went, I think it all ended up in a hiring company being hired out for TV and things. So that got me into that world and I sort of carried on a bit with that and I used to sort of, you know, Gio Ponti desk and a this, I’d find nice things for – there was one other shop opened, that was Themes and Variations in Westbourne Grove. So it was, you know, and I used to occasional fair. You know, they’d have a sort of fair for kind of twenty… you know, and I used to – but I was the only one doing it really. I used to have all these kind of like, I’d have a Joe Colombo plastic chair on the stand and sixties lamps and things like that and it was quite unusual then. Course now it’s not, but it was then, you know.

What was the shop called?

Didn’t have a shop.

Oh sorry, the…

Me. Didn’t have any name.

Oh.

Just used to do a fair as me, Tommy… I used to go to a fair and I had these things in my flat, in my home.

In Westbourne Grove?

Yeah. People used to come round and buy something. They knew about me and my Raymond Loewy sideboard or whatever it was, you know.

So what’s that like, to have people coming into your home to…

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I didn’t mind it, ‘cos it’s only you know, it wasn’t Tom, Dick and Harry was it? It was people who would understand that, you know. It wouldn’t be ordinary person coming in for a kind of Carlo De Carli coffee table or whatever, you know, an Italian piece of furniture. And I did that for two or three years. Then I started Tom Tom, ninety-four, selling the pop art lithographs and silkscreens and selected pieces of sort of design furniture. And I started that. Tom Tom and then I sold that out in about – when was it? Brain’s gone. 2001 or whatever. Then I started Two Columbia Road with my son, but by then I couldn’t, you know, I didn’t want to do it fulltime and he carries on with it to this day, Two Columbia Road, selling all the good quality Danish, Scandinavian furniture and you know, old quality Charles Eames things and all that. But I’d been doing the Charles, you know, I started that in eighty-nine, earlier on, doing those things. Now it’s, it’s common knowledge and on everyone’s lips isn’t it? [laughs] So I’m kind of looking, I’m gonna – what’s next I don’t know, I’m kind of feeling my way with what to do. Still haven’t finished. I’m gonna have a revival in a minute and do something else.

[End of Track 36]

[Track 37]

So, we talked briefly about that ‘greed is good’ thing that happened in the eighties.

What thing?

‘Greed is good’. When…

Yeah, yeah.

…it became alright to be greedy.

Yeah. Well it was a break, and also the other good thing really – the good thing of course is that it brought down the class barriers. You didn’t have to come from you know, the top drawer to be a stockbroker. You could go on the trading floor in the City, young bloke from Essex or whatever who’d come out from the secondary modern school, football, you

Tommy Roberts Page 372 C1046/12/37 know like a bloke who goes to football on Saturday afternoons and that kind, ordinary fellow and earn a great big ton of money trading stocks and shares and securities and all that kind of thing. Well what’s wrong with that? Great. You know, didn’t have to be like, you know, it wasn’t a closed shop any more was it? It didn’t matter where your background was. You could go and work for a Swiss bank or whatever and trade currency and earn yourself a hundred thousand pound a year salary and you could have come from the council estate in Woolwich couldn’t you? You certainly couldn’t have done that twenty years ago, or even ten years ago could you? So all talk about people – Mrs Thatcher done that and it was a great thing she did, great for people. Give them a chance, open their horizons, spread – they might have ended up earning a hundred thousand and going on Saturday and being a football hooligan for a little while, but it would have still broadened their horizons and they would have seen, ninety per cent of them would have seen different things and they got fed up with that and they’d want to go and be a farmer or they’d want to go and do organic vegetables or – all those things have grown out of that. It wasn’t a bad thing, it was a good thing. A good thing and Mrs Thatcher was good, good for this country. Wouldn’t be now, but of course she did her way and when she ended it was ended, but for those years it wasn’t very nice, left wing people wouldn’t see it as a very… but it was, you know, it was great for this country. She certainly wouldn’t have gone into Iraq would she? She would have been, she certainly wouldn’t have put ourself, involved ourself in a war with Iraq with Mr Bush. Now she certainly wouldn’t have done that. Had more common sense than that. So you voted that bloke in and that’s what he’s done for us.

Has it, have you voted throughout your life?

Sporadically. Mm, mm.

Do you now?

The last time I did, yes. I did vote, yes. And I vote for the local council as well.

Would you say you’re patriotic?

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Yes. Well I believe in, you know, I believe in British culture. I mean I’m not talking about every race, creed can join British culture and I’m very pleased that they can, but I don’t believe in multi-culturalism, no. No, because it just makes – there’s no multi- culturalism, people want to stick to their, have their bit of identity. And of course that’s where friction comes along and it will do more in the future. And no, if you want to join British culture, take the good thing about, take our culture and join it. I’m not saying you have to lose completely your own faith over it all or, you know, but I – in a way you do a little bit. You are bent a bit, if you want to be, you’ve got to bend a bit. If I wanted to be in another country I’d have to bend a bit, which I’d be willing to do. But if you’re not willing to do that, you go where, you know. Go back home. [laughs] Is that right? Isn’t that right? But that’s right isn’t it? I mean I’m looking at it very black and white, but that’s what I believe. So in fifty years when they listen to that, they’ll know how I feel about that. And I’m certainly not on my own and I’m not against anyone. To join in and as I say, fair play and everyone have an equal opportunity, I’ve always agreed with it. You know, you haven’t got to like ‘em, like certain person ‘cos they’ve got a belief. You know, I might, you might be a kind of staunch Seventh Day Adventist or something, or some Christian creed and this bloke is also that Christian creed. I haven’t got to like him though have I? But we still both believe in the same thing. That’s where people get mixed up. I remember years ago, somebody who had to go to Court and they couldn’t bear this bloke, but he had unfairly been thrown out of his flat, the landlord had thrown him out and he lived in a flat and he was a nuisance anyway so he was ever so pleased he got thrown out. But, he didn’t like him, he wasn’t his kind of thing, whatever, he was different. I think one was a snob and one was a, whatever. The one who got thrown out was you know, lived in a smart block of flats in Kensington, but the landlord wasn’t entitled to throw him out. And this person didn’t like him, couldn’t stand him, but he still went to Court and stood up for him because he had that belief. But he didn’t talk to him. He never talked to him and he couldn’t stand him. But he still had that belief that you shouldn’t be thrown out. That’s what I’m talking about.

What does British culture mean to you, what does that mean?

Well, it means the things, you know, having a bit of civic pride and being taught about our history. ‘Cos the rot come with teaching history in the seventies. ‘Cos I lived at

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Blackheath and course you know, it was all the, and it was the peasants’ revolt on Blackheath and things like that. But everything was slanted [laughs] even then at school, I mean more people knew about the groups called The Levellers and the whatever and the peasants’ revolt than they knew about like, kind of Cressy or the Black Prince or something. I mean it sounds a bit sort of daft to talk like this, but I’m only trying to make a little point really. British culture, it just means, I quite like, you know I kind of quite liked, it has got, with all it’s faults and everything it’s not a bad way of life. We can say what we want, we’ve got freedom you know, basically to – you know, I could march down the road saying I’m a sort of Trotskyist, I could march down the road saying I’m a kind of, I believe in Pol Pot or something, you know. Long as I ring up the police and say I’m gonna march on – you know, you can do those things. Well they mean a lot don’t they? I mean if you know, a woman wants to wear a veil over her head, she can do. I don’t like it, I think it’s ridiculous, but if she wants to she can do. Or she can walk down the road – I mean I don’t believe it ‘cos she might get attacked – but she can walk down the road in a bikini. You know, this is this country. Most countries you can’t. Because you know… but it’s quite a free, it’s a free country. America’s not so free of course, America’s different. Can’t say this in America, you know, born again Christian and all that in America you know. A girl can’t get, have an abortion without a shocking scene. Here you can do that. You can do all these things. I mean it is a lot to be fought for and a lot to be said for this country. And those are things anyway, I suppose it means basically a freedom really, isn’t it? You know, I don’t want to have to have an identity card, but I can see you’ll have to. I mean I’m not a criminal and I don’t mind having it, what’s wrong with it? What’s it called, identity card, d’you call it? What’s wrong with it? Why not? You know, I mean I pay a five pound note to you know, to have my identity card and I’m asked to produce it, yes here it is. What’s wrong with that? I can’t see anything wrong with it. I can’t see it as an infringement of civil liberties. Not in this day and age and what it’s doing, I don’t see it as an infringement. You know, there’s got to be something, you know. If you’re not gonna have that, it’s gonna get worse and worse, you’re gonna be, people are not gonna be able to walk where they walk and do where they want to, which a lot of young people are frightened to go to certain areas of London or Bradford or wherever it is now. Drugs, well you might as well sort of decriminalise as much as you can because people are gonna take drugs and you might as well accept it. Long as they sign a form saying the National Health don’t have to pick up the damage I suppose, I don’t

Tommy Roberts Page 375 C1046/12/37 know. I smoke, as you notice, I smoke loads of cigarettes, perhaps National Health shouldn’t have to pick up me. But that’s you know, but we can do these things, we’re not… You know, we’re not hypocrites here. America are hypocrites. You know, go to California, if you drink than a half a bottle of white wine you have to go to detox and things. You know, and you can’t smoke anywhere and people don’t drink and it’s all false ‘cos they’re all kind of, they all go home and get crackers on cocaine anyway and it’s all a falseness, a lie. We don’t live that lie so much here. Well we didn’t used to. You know, this lie and I think that you know, they’ll lie to you, everyone lies. You know, I remember years ago that they would eradicate sort of ordinary people being cheated. [laughs] Well I think you’re cheated all day long. There’s phone calls all day long trying to sell you another phone line or a this or a that. You know it’s all cheating, it’s basically cheating. And we seem to be not better, but a hundred times worse. It seems to be every, you know, every time the phone rings it’s someone trying to extract something from you. I thought when I was younger that that kind of thing would have been sort of, you wouldn’t have to do with that, be policed or it would have been controlled properly. You know, but all that seems to be worse than it was, but that’s to do with technology I think. You know, they’re ringing from another you know, wherever they’re ringing from and this and that. And a lot of people are not strong with that and they get talked into things, and there’s a bloke coming giving them a new phone line, they supposed to be cheaper, course it costs them another thirty pound a month, they didn’t realise that after the agreement ‘cos they didn’t read the small print – it’s all cheating. You know, television’s full of red phones, dingling about cheaper insurance and all that and it’s all cheating ‘cos you can walk down the road to the ordinary man and get your insurance the same money. It’s all to do with cheating. And we seem to – that’s a shame to me. Not to say, you know, but not everyone can work out their own, you know, they’re not experienced enough not to be cheated. And course it’s quite simple, the phone calls, you just say yes, well it’s a lovely offer, I’m very pleased you’ve picked me out, offered me all this money, would you put it in writing please and let me have it through the post, thank you very much. [laughs] But I thought all that would be less as I got older, not more. I thought you know, all the people, a socialist Government would eradicate that kind of thing and make it better. But they don’t seem to. They seem to encourage it and half of them are involved in it anyway. Like Mrs Thatcher, [laughs] she’s what you called a sort of fanatic really. So you know that she’s gonna have her salary and she’d not gonna, you know the son might have been a bit of a thing, but her

Tommy Roberts Page 376 C1046/12/37 herself, she’s never gonna be directors of loads of companies ‘cos she’s a fanatic. Fanatics don’t, fanatics don’t care if they have no wages. Fanatics like it when they have no wages and they like it ‘cos they’re fanatics. And sometimes [laughs]… Less wages, better, you know. [laughs] Never mind all the… perhaps I’m rambling on a bit like that, but that’s, a bit like that, you know. Maybe I’m wrong, it’ll probably all change and everyone, all the young people will be, find they’re ever so sensible in years to come and you know, it’ll go back, it’ll all sort of swing the other way. They’ll all be sort of, I don’t know, very, very straight accountants, their sons. You know, the father’s been the drug taking – it’s always like that though isn’t it? the father’s a drug taking hippy, the son goes in the army. It’s always been like that a bit. [laughs]

Could you, what are the kind of values – if that’s the right word – that you’ve tried to instil in your children for example?

I don’t try and do a lot of instilling, I don’t believe in… I’m not an instilling guy. You know, I don’t do instilling. They make their own mind up. Even young ones, you say what you think and then they hear what their mother thinks or something, you know, they make their own mind up. I’m not, I don’t do any instilling. I’m not, sort of don’t believe in it. I suppose I hope they see it as sort of broader picture and everything. You take a little bit from me and take that on board and take a little bit – that’s what you do, don’t you, in life. Everyone takes a little bit and tries to work, to assess those bits and work out a plan from that. We always think people – but they don’t really think about the future, people. Not all that much. You never know what’s round the corner and things change. The best laid plans can go to dust can’t they? Or else, or something you, a person’s not planned a light, it all works fabulous. It’s a funny thing. Life is, can be cruel, you know, whatever. Then it also can be smashing. There’s bits in between nice isn’t there? [laughs] Whole philosophy thing.

We began the interview talking about your schools and so on, your education and I was asking what you felt about the schools you’d gone to. What’s your attitude towards your children’s education, have you had an idea of how you should bring them up in that sense?

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No I think, hard enough to bring myself up. No, I think my son’s intelligent and we’re gonna try, we’ll do the best for him, my younger one. And the other boys, well, they’ve got their own destinies and I mean that’s what it is. Funny enough, it’s a funny thing in life. The one who true concerns you, you know, the man’s beating his head against a wall over you know, his child’s not come first in class and he’s got to get on and self- improvement and become this and devoting and working overtime, killing hisself over it all and you get no more respect. The fathers who usually get the respect are the ones who are in prison and the kids go to see ‘em once every six months, they love their dads. The bloke who hasn’t contributed, not a penny piece all his life and he’s in prison, the children love him. So in a funny way, you know, it’s a funny thing. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying it’s, that’s life, you know it’s a funny thing isn’t it?

You…

Long as you love them I suppose, that’s the main thing isn’t it? That’s my middle name, ‘full o’ love’, I’m all full o’ love. I’m full of love for everyone, me. Bursting with love, I am. [laughs] Don’t put all that.

It’s in there. [laughs]

Full o’ love, Mr Full o’ love.

So, Keith, your son…

Don’t want to put that in, people think…

Keith works in Two Columbia Road.

Well he owns it.

Oh he owns it?

Yeah.

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What’s his background? Did he do design or anything?

No he didn’t, he was, he didn’t do anything, he wasn’t one iota a scholar. But he always worked – at fifteen he worked in Greenwich Theatre helping there and this and that, and when he was seventeen he wrote off, he wrote to every firm in the, you know media thing, The Knowledge is it? You know, try and become a runner in a studios. Someone replied and he wrote a letter and he showed me the copy, it was all spelt wrongly. I thought my God, they’re never gonna… Anyway this firm, and he got a runner and he become a runner and he got on and he knew about cameras and a focus puller and a this and a that and now, he does a film a year and if they want cameras hanging out of helicopters and all that, he’s very, very experienced with working on – only do feature films, but he’ll work on a feature film now and again. Plus he got a shop. You know, he’s very experienced in the film world of technology.

Doing the camera?

Technology. Technically.

Doing the camera or…

Camera, yeah. He’s not a cameraman but he does all the things, you know, the lighting and the thing and tell, he’ll say well pull that back ten metres, you know, whatever. And he just worked on a – he used to work with – who’s that, who’s the big… who died? Full Metal Jacket, 2001.

Kubrick.

He worked for Stanley Kubrick films, like Eyes Wide Shut, he did that and you know. Only big films he’ll work on. So you know, he does that, once every eighteen months he’ll do a film for three months. Plus he’s got a shop in a smart part of London selling - you know I just sold him two things, rare things this morning, by Vassilakis Takis, a kinetic

Tommy Roberts Page 379 C1046/12/37 artist, sixties kinetic artist and I recommended buying them and someone rung me and I said would you take this for him, whatever, sold ‘em for him.

So what are these items?

Takis?

Mm.

He’s a kinetic artist. Well he’s Greek origin I think, but he’s English. He’s just famous for the kind of what are called kinetic art, which I like. Well sculpture really isn’t it? You know, they use lights and things and you know and thing. They’re two like lights on pods on tall thin chrome sticks and you know, wave in the wind and they flash lights and that. They’re made in 1967, they’re very rare. There’s one in the Tate, Yoko Ono’s got one… one in New York in the MOMA. They’re rare things. But you know, my son had two for sale, that’s all.

So, what did you sell them for? Or what will they be sold for?

Well actually the two of them, about five and a half thousand, something. They were made, there was a few, I think there was fifty of each made, but they’re very rare, you know. And incredibly reasonable, but you know, they’re not like fifty thousand. But the person who buys them, they’ll be a hundred thousand in ten years’ time, fifty thousand I suppose. He’s got a modern eye you know, he’s just, he’s got big nice Wolfgang Tillmans in there for sale at the moment.

What’s that?

Well he’s a photographer artist, Wolfgang Tillmans. You know, like…

What’s the piece?

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It’s a big photograph of trees and like a metal kind – he’s obviously, I’m not, I don’t know the technical, but he does it on metal so it all kind of shimmers. Then people like Patrick Caulfields, people like that. What else he got in there? He had a nice Damien Hirst, big spot painting, but not the normal size, the great big spot painting, so that was good. You know, he sells things like that plus very good quality design furniture. You’ve got a beautiful Nanna Ditzel Danish desk and Niels Moller table and chairs. That kind of thing. He does that.

The artist work, the Damien Hirst…

Then I’ve got another son who’s looking for work, so if you’ve got any ideas let me know.

Who’s that, we haven’t mentioned him.

Russell.

And what’s he been doing previously?

Not too much, you know. A few things he does. But he’s quite clever. Clever music, he’s clever, but he you know, I’ve got to get him settled into something. Well I can’t, but you know, he’ll have to find, you know write off, apply for jobs.

The artist pieces that are in Two Columbia Road like the Damien Hirst piece, where – are they bought directly from the artist or from the dealer or…

Oh no, I never buy things from artists. ‘Cos they always over-value their worth. They think everything’s worth thousands and thousands, artists, wouldn’t they. Then they think it’s the most, best thing in the whole world wouldn’t they? There’s a reality of price. Other collectors, dealers, you know. People. People want to maybe have art things and they want to buy something very expensive and they want two or three lesser things. You know, it just comes along. People need the money. There’s usually three reasons for selling things like that isn’t there? The three d’s; death, debt and divorce. The three d’s,

Tommy Roberts Page 381 C1046/12/37 they’re known as. New wife don’t like those things, the old you know, that kind of thing. Wants a new, have a clean sweep. And the old stuff’s got to go hasn’t it?

Who are the customers at Two Columbia Road?

People… I mean, it’s not my shop. I mean it’s his shop, I’m only asked up there occasionally for advice. Occasionally. You know, I mean I suppose people in the media, people who live round there. It’s quite, you know… I don’t know, smart couples. I don’t know. People. All over that, you know, buy it. Not overseas so much, mostly home people. Used to be always overseas, but not that so much nowadays, no.

What’s it like to be selling things as retro now, you know, the – nowadays it’s retro, vintage…

I don’t understand, I don’t know what that word means. What does retro mean? Does it mean sort of stuff that’s pretending to be old or something? You know, like a sixties lamp that was made in nineteen, year 2005 – is that retro?

I’m not sure.

Or is it old bits of crap, old bits of tat or something. I mean it’s a word, I don’t really understand what it means. I can’t, you know, certain words I hate. Retro’s one. And kitchenalia is another one. [laughs] You know, where those people have anything to do with old kitchens, you know, those sort of words. I don’t know what it means but I suppose I’d better tell you ‘cos everyone knows what it is. It’s like lifestyle, that’s a horrible word as well isn’t it? What is lifestyle? What is it? I don’t understand, I don’t know what it is really. Well I mentioned it about twice in your thing, lifestyle magazines. I suppose I – but it’s only like a parrot, I don’t really know what it means, I’ve just said it. But carry on, try and tell me what you mean.

[laughs] I mean for example, around Columbia Road, Hoxton, Shoreditch, all round there, there are - and Spitalfields again – there are shops selling retro furniture; sixties, pop art, whether it’s new or whether copies or whether it’s…

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I don’t know many, I don’t know these shops. There is a couple of shops. There’s a shop selling kind of leather sofas made in the seventies or something like that and bits, fun bits I suppose and that. You know, I don’t know anyone who sells a proper Nanna Ditzel desk table, I mean I don’t know about that. Let me know I’ll go and find it, I’ll buy it. No, I do know what you mean, I’m not saying, but you know it’s a little bit more, it’s not quite as simple as that.

No, of course it isn’t.

You’re talking to somebody who’s in that, you know, it’s not like talking to a mate about it, you understand, you know.

But, bearing in mind that you do know…

I mean I’m not, you know, I’m sure you don’t have customers looking for a bit of retro sixties furniture, young couple to put in the front room. I mean they’ll have to go to a shop where they get… you know… Saying that, maybe you know, it does a sort of nice, the sixties sort of, De Sede sofa or something that they would buy, you know. But I know what you mean, most people it is… they’re buying it ‘cos of that. They’re not worried about, they’re not connoisseurs, they’re just buying it ‘cos it fits in to their scheme of things. It’s always been like that, I understand that. I understand that. Connoisseurs are a nuisance, it’s too fussy. Better off with an affluent young couple who want a bit of, like a nice Eames, two Eames lounge chairs to watch the big TV on. But of course a lot of these things are made new now. I mean you know, we’ve got an Eames lounger chair, a real one, I think made in 1969, a proper Charles Eames lounger and ottoman, I suppose about three and a half thousand pound. But you can buy the modern repro one on E-bay for six hundred and fifty pound. So in a funny way, you know, unless you’re really into it, you might as well have the E-bay one mightn’t you? D’you know what I mean. It may not be worth much when you come to sell it and the other one probably go up in value, but does it matter? You’re not worried about that, you’re worried about – and course, most of it, people think they keep things for years, think it’s gonna increase and most things don’t ‘cos fashions change. By the time they go to sell it all, it’s not wanted any more. [laughs]

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But, in your various businesses I mean you’ve been selling items that were antiques of a kind or…

Yes, yeah carry on. That’s correct.

…and as we’ve spoken about before, fashion being as it is, it regurgitates over and over and are you finding you’re selling things that you’ve previously, you’ve previously sold, perhaps in the sixties or the seventies?

Yes, well yeah. I’m trying to think. Not quite as early – I’m trying to think. Yes, it does regurgitate. Things come out. Things like stripped pine furniture was fashionable for about thirty-five years and now it’s not, they like a painted thing. You know, things like that. You know, it is, it’s circles but of course with things for the home, the circle is a big circle, it takes quite a long time to change. It’s not like fashion. It is a fashion, but it’s a much slower fashion, you know. I suppose people now think they’d like a tailored suit with big shoulders, have a sort of mid eighties revival look or something.

[End of Track 37] [Track 38]

I don’t know, you know. Pair of high heels and the look. A silhouette. But, you know, things evolve. And anything good is good. There’s no sort of fashion, you know there’s a beautiful fabric by Lucienne Day or something, a nice textile from the fifties is still good. It transcends it. Proper piece of Eames furniture, a proper piece of Jakobsen good quality old Egg Chair with old brown leather, you know it transcends that. It’s always wanted and it’s always desirable. You know, good quality, a good thing, good design, it’s always desirable. You know it’s – I’m talking more about things for the home I suppose. And pictures as well. Maybe some of those kind of… And things get re – you re-evaluate things. A lot of those like late thirties, forties painters, English, they were undervalued and I always quite liked them and they’re coming into the fore now aren’t they?

Such as?

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I mean people want a John Piper, they want Eric Ravilious, they want Edward Bawden, they want people like that, you know. About twenty years ago, no-one would want them, who’d want them, you know. You’d want a nice, nice kind of set of plates from, done by Scottie Wilson or something like that, you know. They’ve always been reckoned, but now they’re really, you know, people are, there’s so much more knowledge, people are more knowledgeable about these things, many more books about these things, TV programmes – they’re knowledgeable. Before there was only a few people who would be knowledgeable about these people. Knowledge has spread. And they want nice things, live with nice things. Not many, but a few nice things. One good picture, you know. But then, people who sort of buy things, you just buy things. Like me, it just keeps coming along doesn’t it? And I kind of like – but then I’ve gone very quirky, I’ve got rid of all that design thing, I’m not int… I’m not worried, you know I mean after a certain age you’re not worried about it all. I like the old [inaudible] chair for the country house with the big stuffing all hanging out of it to sit on. You know, not worried about it all.

When did that change happen?

Don’t know, it creeps up on you I suppose. It becomes an irrelevance, everything like that doesn’t it? In a funny way, you know.

In the last ten years?

What’s for dinner is what you’re interested in. [laughs] You know, I’m not saying I’m not, you know, and then I see something I like, oh that’s nice. But I only like it for five minutes. Books, I’ve got a thing about books at the moment, I like books. My new thing, you know. Just bought a nice book on Massine, the ballet dancer, all lovely photographic things. Things like that, you know.

You sell books don’t you?

Mm, I do sell books, yeah.

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What are the – is it art books?

Art books, design, you know. Things, you know, it’s funny, a book on skinheads can be worth more than a book on art. Lifestyle, horrible – popular culture I suppose is the word. I do, mm. Just trying to think what… I bought a book on Leni Riefenstahl. I don’t know.

And, d’you sell them on?

I do, yeah. Can’t read ‘em all. Yeah. I like, you know I just try to select things people like. Have a nice bookcase in their home with all nice books, this is the nice thing isn’t it? They’re nice things aren’t they? Something about them isn’t there? You can’t sort of, that can’t be kind of, kind of cheapened in a way. [laughs]

So where do you sell them, how do you do that? Is it mail order or…

Well I have a bookstand in my son’s shop and I put selected volumes in there and I do it at Spitalfields Market, but I haven’t done it lately so I might have to do that again. And that’s, you know, whatever. Any other questions? I don’t mind, you can carry on. I’ve not had enough yet, it’s alright.

I actually wanted to go back a little to Practical Styling, if we could. Specific time, the early eighties in London – could you give a sort of a summary of that period, socially and you know.

Well by about eighty-three it was all changing wasn’t it, you know, like Comedy Store, there was a revival in kind of comedy and music and – ‘cos all the technical music came in then. You know what I mean, the tech… Hip hop. No, it was changing, it was definitely, definitely a whole changing scene. As I say, the restaurants opening and pubs and pubs have sort of, cappuccino and all that. In some ways you were getting a nicer, you know, the city was getting, you know London was becoming a nicer place. Some ways, in other ways not. London was totally changing, the mix of London. People who’d been here forever were moving out of course and fresh people moving in. It’s always been like that, London, I mean that’s not… but it was changing, you know. Places that had been slums

Tommy Roberts Page 386 C1046/12/38 were now Spitalfields and artists and people were moving… areas were changing their look, identity, feel, lot of construction going on, lot of infill. Where they’d been open, you know, there might have been a house with a garage next to it and the garage would be knocked down and a block of flats built there. The look, it physically changing and it hadn’t, you know, it was just changing from the seventies – the early sixties were a hangover from the fifties and the early seventies were a hangover from the late sixties and by about eighty-three it was a new thing. New jobs were being created, jobs in sort of computing, heavy industry was going, manufacturing, the normal job was going, there was a new service industry was springing – no, it was totally changing. Totally changing. And you know, change has, that’s what’s gone on and now we’re in the flux of change again, of some sort. It’s starting again, they’ll be another change come. You know, that’s gone on and then there was a, as I say, the recession knocked it back and it started up again in the nineties and got very expensive for people to live in London and certain jobs were no future, other jobs had enormous future, people were transient, they’d go abroad or whatever and people coming in, influx of people from Eastern Europe coming here and you know, places and bringing it through, whatever. But of course people don’t basically change, they stay the same in their attitudes. But the look and what people – well, it did change, it changed dramatically because what people do has changed. I’m not sure about how they think. You know, it’s changed. What you read has changed, your input, what’s on television has changed, you know. The cinema’s become a sort of cartoon hasn’t it? I mean there’s no proper – films are just like cartoons now. Whether people can’t absorb anything. But then there’s a lot more people reading books than they used to, so you know, it’s a funny thing. You think things seem to be lesser, but they’re more and you know, it’s that change all the time. But I think the late eighties, nineties thing is petering out. So, come and ask me in three years and we’ll have a picture of what’s changing. There’s certainly change gone on in the last two years, but I can’t quite formulate it – it’s hard, when you’re very close to it you can’t tell. People try to predict, they’re always wrong anyway. There’s companies grown up, there’s big companies telling banks and people they’ll predict the future for ‘em, they’ll tell you – or they tell, like fashion industry what colour’s coming in. They’re always fucking – excuse me – they’re always totally wrong. They might be able to predict a season, but they can’t predict more than about eighteen months in advance. Building you can, ‘cos you know you’ve got that plot and that thing’ll be built in two years’ time so you know that is a physical change what’ll

Tommy Roberts Page 387 C1046/12/38 happen in that area or – ‘cos a building is planned to go up in that place, you know. Skyline’s changed enormously. You know, everything. But that’s the end of that cycle of change, now there’s a new one. Where you go to eat, where you go to recreate… you know, where you go to kind of dances – it’s all changed. You know, the Ministry of Sound, enormous. Now that’s finished. There’s a change with that, people wouldn’t go there perhaps. You know, it changes.

When you…

It…

Sorry. When you finished City Lights and you gave up on fashion as it were, did you maintain any interest in fashion, the fashion business?

Yeah, I’ve always been interested in it. I mean I’ve always been interested in it. I did a couple of things. I did a thing for Stussy about ten years ago, I did some sort of t-shirts and things. And I did a thing for Maharishi, another name, you know, that fellow, I did last year, the beginning of last year I did a couple of things for him. So I do you know, little bits come and go.

Little bits?

I don’t get any money out of it, but I do, it keeps the name alive and I get a little bit of money and get a few garments given to me, giveaways, gifts to people.

So, what form does that take – I mean you don’t work with a designer any more do you?

No, they asked me would I like to do something or other. And then they want to change, chop it a little bit, put their own input into it, I don’t mind. You know, I did, All You Need Is Love, like an appliquéd thing on a woman’s sort of – not denim was it, denim? But he did it in sort of denim and like a jacket, a short jacket, All You Need Is Love, and it had little stars on it and things and he did sort of, those, quite expensive thing. I don’t

Tommy Roberts Page 388 C1046/12/38 know, five, four hundred pound garment, I don’t know. So he did two or three, he did two or three bits like that and lovely. My Mr Freedom label.

So still…

Mr Freedom for Maharishi.

So still keeping that label going?

Oh yeah, well it’s never got ruined did it? Most labels get ruined ‘cos things happen and it goes downhill, it ends up down the market on a barrow and you know, thing. But mine never did ‘cos mine comes to a full – oh, boom, stopped, finished. There was no creeping on, getting debased, so it’s finished, so it’s a strong – but course it’s a long time ago, not so many, you know, people have heard of it, but it’s never got debased so it’s kind of, it never got like cheapened up and put on a load of old cheap stuff, garments or anything did it? It’s still kind of quite fresh. [laughs] People have used it. Mr Free – somebody made Mr Freedom beer and all this kind of thing and they used the name and the colours, but they come and go, I don’t care. Doesn’t matter to me.

How, hm, how do you feel…

And the other thing with all that fame with me, it never, they said well sixties – I’m not sixties fashion, they say seventies. I’m at the cusp. If they do a thing on sixties fashion, it’s not… you know, I’m in a funny sort of world really.

I was wondering how you feel about how you’re seen by the fashion business or whatever?

I don’t know, I’ve got no idea, you know, I don’t know. Got no idea. A blip I suppose, a curiosity I suppose. I honestly don’t know.

Is it not important to you?

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Maybe, little – I don’t think it really is, no. Otherwise I would have done something about it, wouldn’t it? I mean I would have felt my – mind you, it’s a long time ago we’re talking about you know, a long time ago. You’re a youngster now, you talk about Mr Freedom, it’s like me being a youngster and people talking about the First World War. That’s how long ago it is, that’s the timescale. Like me being in the early sixties thinking about kind of what I’m gonna wear and buying a car and somebody discussing the First World War. You know, it’s interesting but irrelevant.

How d’you feel about – I mean you’re interested in history, how d’you feel about your place in…

Don’t think about it. Hope people remember it, it was important, it influenced a lot of things. Be nice if people remembered it, but I can’t hope, you know. Be nice if they would, but if they don’t, they don’t. [laughs] What can I do about that?

How d’you feel about having been recorded for the British Library?

I felt it quite taxing and you dredge up the past, sometimes isn’t that nice, but pleased to do it and maybe someone, long as someone got some interest, you know it meant something to someone later on perhaps. Fine. It’s quite a nice thing to state what you’ve done. I mean it can only be a good thing and you know, if you’ve got lots of different people talking, you know it is a thing where people will get a good insight into how society and people were in a certain period of history, you know, a time. Whether in a hundred years’ time if they listen to it they quite work out what it all about, but – well they would, hundred. Five hundred years’ time they probably wouldn’t. Be very sort of, be like cave paint… I don’t know, I suppose, though I don’t know really. Who knows? Who knows? And of course talking about – ‘cos what they’d want with this is a visual. This is not like a lady who lived on a farm in 1920s and talking about Bobby the donkey and going down the thing and how lovely it all was and when you know, granddad was in the pub singing the old folk songs, you know, you can vis… But this you need to visualise it, you know, it’s hard to, you wouldn’t be able to bring that up. But someone talking about down the farm and the village, you can see a visual but this you would need a visual with that, I think to make it alive, come alive. Not all of it, some of it, you know.

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Although, in a sense, interviewing artists and…

But yeah, but they see by the pictures and they start to put it in context and they can see a, you know, London perhaps, pictures of London in nineteen, you know.

But it’s quite interesting when somebody who’s worked in a, with visual things then describes it in words. That’s I think what we’re trying to, as if there were no pictures. So that’s why…

That’s why we’re doing it, yeah.

That’s why we’re trying. [laughs] Struggling.

Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Well I think that, you know. I’m sure you captured it, I’m not saying that. I’m sure you’ve captured it.

Is there any area of your career or life that you feel that we haven’t talked about that you would like to have in the recording?

…I suppose there is, but I can’t think for the minute, you know. No, I can’t give you any more really. I suppose if you ask me a very direct question about something I might be able to respond, but…

Well, can you describe your life now?

Not really. No, I can’t really. Very nice, whatever, you know. I don’t want, you know. I don’t think it’s interesting, people… But ask me another question, I might…

[End of Track 38]

[Track 39]

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Yeah. So, Practical Styling. When you’re talking about the interior décor of the shop and you said ‘we’, who was ‘we’?

Oh, I had a partner with me at the time and… Paul Jones, his name, and we sort of started it together really. He was doing the antiques and things and bits. And I went to America, I said you should come with me. I think in 1980 he came over and got enthused like me with these things and we thought well that’s what we’d try to put this together, this shop. And it was a big shop in central London and kind of - I don’t know how we put it together, but we just did it really, we didn’t really have that much money or anything, but somehow we got away with it and did it. It was on two floors. And then all the furniture and the flooring and that kind of thing were downstairs. There wasn’t like things hanging on ceiling, décor really, it was just a very plain – I kept it rather austere just concrete block really, which I suppose Centre Point is. And then upstairs we did all the small things, all the accessories and the small housewares and fabric, and things like that. It was like two floors. Oh well, I think we had a great - there was a hospital closing down and I bought a great big, two great – the lights from the operating theatres; wonderful – I suppose they were 1930s they were made – like big white kind of dome and great big circular big lights and we hung them in the entrance way. And then we had a sign built for it, which was ‘PS’. It became known as ‘PS’ actually. Practical Styling, people knew it as ‘PS’. And…

What was the sign like?

We got a big metal grille and metalworkers and we had sort of steel sheeting, cut out a kind of block capital ‘P’ and an ‘S’. And I think we had a grille made, a big square grille made and affixed, made red and then I think we sprayed, enamelled the ‘P’ and the ‘S’ – they were big, it was a big sign – and then we enamelled the ‘P’ and ‘S’ in black and that was a sign. I think we had a light behind it and at night you could see. Going through the grille, pick up the words ‘PS’. Oh then we wrapped the shop one Christmas, that’s what we did. I think we did like a Christo thing. We sort of wrapped in like a big, in sort of Christmas, in sort – we wrapped it in big nylon sheets and like Christmas kind of that, you know, what do they call it? Not string, tape. And we made a big wrap, we wrapped the whole shop which must have been enormous sort of great big part, it was a big like

Tommy Roberts Page 392 C1046/12/39 wrapping thing we did one Christmas. Trying to think what else we did, we did a few quite interesting things. I told you about the brooms, like a kind of – oh then we did a kind of like Jackson Pollock thing. We did an enormous like pastiche of a Jackson Pollock picture which must have been thirty foot long. And we did that. And then we put the sort of… And then, I think then we did a window, it was nothing in the window, just sort of corrugated paper and we just put one broom and a brush and a dustbin in there and that was the window display, with about six lights on it. Yeah, we was quite, always kind of made attention to that, every six weeks we’d do a number in there, do something interesting. Something curious, or whatever. Try and make it a little bit, people would notice it. A lot of people passing by didn’t notice it, but anyone if they’re aware and that would notice it. And my wife used to be a customer so she’d probably give you, she wouldn’t be bad to talk, if she’s about. I’ll just see if she’s in. ‘Cos she kind of remembers it better than I do really.

[break in recording]

You went in there didn’t you?

Jane Roberts: Where do I put these?

On your collar. So, introduce yourself first.

Jane Roberts: Jane Roberts.

And Tommy says that you were a customer of Practical Styling…

JR: I was.

…and you might be able to tell me what it was like.

JR: Well, just from remembering, you’d go in and there’d be racks and racks and racks of pegs and teapots, dustbins, everything. Like a hardware shop, but totally colourful. So there might be spotty things – like there’d be knives and forks and they’d have plastic

Tommy Roberts Page 393 C1046/12/39 handles and you never saw all that stuff before you saw it in Practical Styling, well I didn’t certainly. There wasn’t even, you know, any of the other stores that were doing trendy stuff, it was completely different ‘cos it was sort of cheap and cheerful but really good quality. So, then there would be like posher bits where there’d be a load of rugs and things and you’d think, ah, ‘cos the other things had been relatively reasonably priced you’d think, oh I could get a rug [laughs], and then you’d have a good look and they were quite expensive, weren’t they?

TR: Yeah, yeah.

JR: Really. Like Italian designs and…

TR: Three hundred pounds and five hundred, yeah.

JR: Yeah, yeah, but fantastically abstract and lovely and colourful. And then there’d be furniture. There was a bit of that – what’s that stuff that Hamish had with… we had in the house for a while that had the lovely… It was like Fornasetti-ish, but it wasn’t Fornasetti.

TR: Yeah, it was like a sort of, it was a Piranesi design of architectural thing and we had tables and long, like desk tables and…

JR: And bureaus. Oh you had that table, was gorgeous.

TR: Yeah, it was lovely, that table wasn’t it?

JR: Yeah. Black and white and metal legs.

TR Yeah, big dining table.

JR: But big, dining table with a huge sort of Romanesque-y sort of design on the top. And then there was a – and there’d be a matching sideboard with like cupboard doors in it and everything. You just kind of wanted everything, didn’t you?

Tommy Roberts Page 394 C1046/12/39

TR: Yeah, yeah.

JR: And then in the middle of that, the way it was all laid out, there’d be like hanging lamps and stuff. But you went downstairs as well, what was downstairs?

TR: Well downstairs, you come into downstairs, you went upstairs.

JR: And then you went upstairs to the bigger bits.

TR: Yeah, no the smaller bits were upstairs.

JR: Were they? I can’t remember.

TR: The shelving, no, and downstairs. You went two or three steps to – you didn’t go there ‘cos you didn’t come in like that, you went…

JR: No, you went down.

TR: …downstairs didn’t you and then upstairs, yeah. Split level wasn’t it?

JR: It felt huge, I mean I don’t know how big it was.

TR: Yeah it was big, it was big.

JR: You’d know better than me.

TR: Yeah, it was big.

JR: It had massive plate glass windows and you could see it all from the street and everything, but you could never quite, sure if it was like a really posh shop or a sort of – it was just unique really, Practical Styling, wasn’t it?

TR: Yeah, mm.

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JR: It was brilliant.

TR: People liked it, didn’t they?

JR: Oh, they loved it. And once they’d gone, they’d go back all the time ‘cos you got stuff all the time, so you might go…

TR: Yeah. Then we used to have a wonderful sale and that.

JR: Yeah, yeah.

You talked about the famous customers that came to City Lights and previously, were there eighties famous people that came to…

TR: Yeah. I’m trying to think. Like Boy George and…

JR: Yeah, it was quite pop starry wasn’t it?

TR: Pop starry, yeah.

JR: That whole era was all like that though, wasn’t it?

TR: Yeah. I’m trying to think of those groups, you know I’m not very good with all that now. But early eighties kind of…

JR: Well there was all that Duran Duran lot and everything, they all loved it.

[both talking together]

TR: Duran Duran and his wife and all that. All those people. Yeah all that kind of people.

Tommy Roberts Page 396 C1046/12/39

JR: But didn’t that Sex Pistols drummer and that and they all… all that New Romantics lot were all coming there.

[both talking together]

TR: Steve Strange and all that. Yeah, yeah. All that. Yeah, yeah, they all loved it.

One at a time please.

JR: Oh, one at a time.

[laughs]

TR: Yeah.

JR: We never talk one at a time. [laughs]

Jane, could you say how you met Tommy?

JR: Oh yes, yes I could. Shall I?

TR: Yeah.

JR: [laughs] No, it’s dead straightforward. Well I had met Tommy a few times ‘cos he’s a really good friend of my brother’s and his girlfriend Tracy and we all shared a place together, on and off. And they’d known Tommy for sort of, oh ages, five or six years hadn’t they, and I’d been in London some of the time and away and come back and then – and I’d always…

TR: Much younger than me. I’d just better say that.

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JR: Oh yeah, loads younger. No. Yeah, there is about eighteen years between us isn’t there? Sixteen, seventeen years or something. Anyway, and so I’d always said to Tracy and Phillip, I would like to meet Tommy properly. I did meet you a few times didn’t I?

TR: Mm, mm.

JR: And then we went to Tracy’s thirtieth birthday party and I said I would only – and she was my best friend – and I said I would only go if I could sit next to Tommy. [laughs] So I did. And that was it.

TR: That was it.

JR: We got married a year later didn’t we?

TR: Yeah that’s right.

And who came to your wedding, Jane?

JR: Who came to our wedding? Names of people?

People that other people might know.

JR: Okay, okay. Dave Stewart came with…

TR: Siobhan.

JR: Siobhan, yeah. And Terence Donovan came, Malcolm McLaren.

TR: Peter Blake.

JR: Peter Blake, with Chrissie and Hind Schumi came.

TR: Yeah.

Tommy Roberts Page 398 C1046/12/39

JR: And Tanya Sarne of Ghost, she came. Oh, Lynne Franks. Oh, that lovely designer, Richmond, John Richmond… John Richmond and his gorgeous wife, model. Justin de Villeneuve came, best man. Pete – oh, the other Peter, artist Peter came didn’t he?

TR: Yeah, Peter Denmark.

JR: Oh and Craigie Aitchison came.

TR: Craigie Aitchison.

JR: Lovely Craigie. Erm, you know, all my family came as well. [laughs]

And how were you both dressed?

JR: Can’t remember. Oh, we looked gorgeous didn’t we? Tommy had a fantastic double breasted suit on, didn’t you, with like a really broad, darkish grey with a whitish, off white pinstripe. Looked brilliant didn’t it?

TR: Mm.

JR: And I was dressed in a Caroline Charles, I think. Skirt and jacket. And it was in December so it was lovely. Got married at Chelsea Registry Office. I think that was – I can’t think of anyone else. There were a few, probably others who I can’t think of. It was very nice.

TR: Alright?

Thank you. [laughs]

JR: Anyone else? Did anyone else come?

TR: What?

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JR: Am I missing someone out?

TR: I don’t know, I can’t remember you see. That’s the trouble. Half of them I’d forgotten about, couldn’t have told you them.

JR: How could you forget about them? It was the best day.

TR: Yeah.

JR: Here, you can have it back now.

Thank you.

[End of Track 39]

[End of recording]